


Zero Tears

by VeteranKlaus



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Violence, Gore, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempts, Kind of Dark Klaus Hargreeves, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21909697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus
Summary: Klaus is twenty-nine years old and he just killed his own father.
Comments: 211
Kudos: 512





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads-up for extreme violence in this part when the mausoleum is mentioned. Also implied suicide attempts.

He had broken into the Academy many times before. There was no reason to think that this time would be any different.

He had no money to buy a motel room and his attempts at seducing his way into a stranger's bed for the night failed, and he's willing to blame it on his rough, painful cough developed from the sudden cold and the fact that he is clearly coming down from something. With a budding illness merging with the start of withdrawals, Klaus takes one look at the snow falling from the sky and decides he doesn't want to sleep in an alleyway tonight. So he goes to the Academy, climbs up the fire escape and into his bedroom window like the many times he's done this before, only this time is slightly more delirious. Only Ben was there to witness him get lost in the Academy's street and walk past it three times, and he couldn't tell anyone so it did not count. The important thing is that he made it there eventually; shaking hands and slipping feet propelling him up the fire escape, fumbling fingers digging beneath his window, relieved to find it still unlocked, and he all but throws himself in. 

The heat inside is like a blessing what with the snow on his eyelashes and melting in his hair, even if it turns his fingers an even brighter shade of red. He slams his window shut carelessly and just before he throws himself onto his childhood bed, he catches sight of a wavering figure; rippling like an image reaching out to him through a pool of water, a figure that is moaning and keening so horrendously as blood dribbles past its lips. So Klaus changes his focus with a grimace. He knocks a lamp off his dresser in his hurry to pull off the joint taped inside the lampshade. The lighter burns his thumb in his haste. 

Although through horrific coughing fits that have his ribcage rattling, himself doubled over and fearing he might pass out or vomit, he manages to finish the joint greedily and only then, when his room is silent save for the rattle of his breath in his lungs, he turns to face the peeling paint of his bedroom wall and promptly passes out.

He knows, now, what a stupid move that was. Making so much noise and then staying in his room, rather than going to any of the forty-two other bedrooms or to the attic, like he usually does. Because he wakes up to Reginald in his doorway, Grace by his side. 

_(She looks empty, he notices. There's a lack of depth and warmth in her eyes that used to be there the last time he had seen here. If she were human, he might relate it to the time he first took heroin, not at all with reality. Staring through things and never quite at them. Functioning on autopilot with no real meaning to each movement.)_

At least there was the small mercy that Grace took him to the infirmary, where she checked on his temperature, ensured he ate hot meals and drank plenty of tea for his throat. The only downside, then, to being acknowledged in the Academy was the withdrawals. He was too exhausted to get up and find a hit for himself and by the time his illness was probably passing, the withdrawals had a hold of him and made him feel even worse. He did manage to get outside, once, only to collapse half-way through the courtyard into a shivering, boneless heap and for Grace to find him an hour or so later. 

And of course, there was Reginald. He took the opportunity to pounce on him, because the man just never knew when to give up and an illness keeping Klaus in the Academy was the chance to try and dig his claws and fangs right back into him. 

Despite the amount of times he had ever called him a disappointment and a failure, he never gave up. Not on him, not on any of them. Not when they were children and when Klaus was almost thirty years old. He was too damn stubborn. Klaus could yell all he wanted, could make a mess of rooms and throw tantrums; Diego could threaten him with violence (Klaus realises, now, that none of them had ever actually raised a hand to Reginald despite any threats to do so) and Five could belittle him (as much as he had before disappearing, anyway,) and Reginald was so sure of himself in the fact that the worst his children, his little soldiers, could do was to leave. He was so sure that no matter what he did, they couldn't retaliate. And he was right. 

Klaus could scream at him, curse him out enough to ensure himself a spot in Hell; Diego could be as graphic and morbid in his threats; Allison could try and manipulate any situation, but in the end there was something stopping them from actually taking action. 

And Klaus was sure, too, that Reginald probably wouldn't have even resisted if they had - because he knew they wouldn't. They only had to persevere and take action and everything could have been so different. The only thing that had ever stopped them was themselves and that childish hope, that childish love, some crippling desperation to be loved, to be praised by Reginald. 

Klaus might detest his father, but he remembered the occasions, now long gone, faint memories of a time years before even Five had disappeared, that he had done something right and Reginald had given him the closest thing to a praise he could muster, and he had _preened_. Had tried desperately to hear that again before it simply became reality that he never would hear anything close to a compliment or a praise once he hit ten years old.

It was infuriating. Nearly maddening. This bone-deep desire for a fatherly figure, for love, from the one person he hated most in the world. And he knew that was what always stopped him, stopped any of them, from taking action against Reginald. Possibly more so than the fear of the idea of standing up against him, too. 

He had stayed in the Academy for a while. The weather, though no more snow, stayed extremely poor, and he told himself he would wait it out. Here, he was warm, got three warm meals a day, and comfortable. Besides arguments he was accustomed to, he went by pretty much ignored for a while.

Then he finished his stash of weed and cracked open his other stash of pretty little pills.

Klaus had never seen such fury on Reginald’s face. Not when he’d first overdosed, not when he’d tried to drown himself, not when he’d thrown things or yelled, not when he’d fallen in high multiple times before and stole shit.

He still isn’t sure why he was so furious. Maybe he just broke that day.

The argument was a blur full of familiar words like ‘disappointment’, ‘failure’, ‘disgusting’, and Klaus probably laughed like some villain in an over-exaggerated play and hissed curses with venom dripping off his tongue while the walls around him began to breathe and sway.

Klaus had thought he was kicking him out. He had curled a hand into his jacket collar and forced him downstairs. Klaus was happy to leave anyway, swaying by Reginald’s side and spitting remarks and bitter jokes.

His voice fell flat when he realised, too late, where they were going.

He had tried, of course, to get away. Started protesting and shoving and pulling away, but the floor beneath him was like a boat on a choppy sea and the mausoleum was like a tidal wave, coming closer, looming above him, moments from crashing down upon him and devouring him whole, and he had just scrambled around, tripped, fell, and still could not bring himself to force Reginald to let him go.

Reginald had always had a grip like a vice, scarily strong, and he had hardly seemed to budge. He might as well have been throwing his full body weight at Luther.

_(He had seen Luther in the Academy. They did not speak much. Luther avoided him and Klaus avoided Luther. He did notice, however, that Luther had almost tripled in size and took up whole doorways. Luther never offered an explanation.)_

He had fallen like a ragdoll into the mausoleum when Reginald had pushed him. There hadn’t been enough time to get onto his knees before the doors slammed shut and the rusty lock turned.

Klaus sat there with the knowledge of what would come as his high wore off. Every minute was agony created by his own paranoia and fear, each second that became clearer drawing him further into a panic tightening his ribs so much he couldn’t draw in enough air to scream for Reginald to let him out.

They came slowly. Wavering figures in his peripheral, whispers against his ears, echoing moans from the shadows, his name, chanted over and over again like a choir composed of the souls of the damned.

They screamed. He screamed. Reginald did not come.

He spent his new bout of withdrawals in the corner of the mausoleum, too delirious to do anything but scream until his voice was hoarse.

The ghosts’ voices never went hoarse. Some of them were broken as they choked on their own blood for eternity, and the splatter of blood against stone was a steady metronome of which caused him to twitch each time in rhythm.

He tried to pry the doors open. He tried to beat the doors open, slamming himself into it again and again. He broke the windows and tried to pry apart the bars outside of them. He tried to squeeze himself out of them. It didn’t work.

The sun rose and it fell. He couldn’t be sure how many times. Reginald never came.

He hit his head off the floor and the wall and against the corner of a stone slab, but it must have never been enough because he always woke up.

He was sure, by then, he had broken. He would have done anything Reginald had told him to if he had only come and open the doors by then. But he didn’t.

And if he _had_ broken by then, well, there was always more to break, apparently. Things could only get worse.

He had been hitting his head again, if only for a few stolen moments of utter silence.

_(How his skull hadn’t broken was beyond him; how he hadn’t died yet wasn’t beyond him. Death seemed like something too good to be true.)_

It didn’t work. He had sobbed. Over the hours, or days, or weeks or months or years he had been in there, more ghosts seemed to flock to him. There were too many, too many, too many. He just wanted it all to stop, and he had to accept, then, that it wouldn’t.

Although he had only been crying as of recently, he had screamed again then, more in anguish than in fear, and then something had _happened_. His fists, coated in dirt and his own blood, hit the floor and cold, cold more than he was used to now, flooded him. Something that reached deeper than his bones, deeper than his blood; reached into the depth of his very being and _twisted_.

His hands illuminated the shadows of the mausoleum in a deep blue. The ghosts seemed to take on a different appearance; they became more real, more solid. And then they reached out, as they always did, to touch him.

And they touched him.

Klaus had thought ghosts retained some kind of humanity, some kind of sentience. Sure, they threatened to kill him, but they threatened to strangle him, to shoot him, to beat him.

They did not threaten to dig trenches in his flesh with their rotting nails, did not threaten to pull his hair out, to try and pull his tongue out of his mouth or dig their fingers into his eyes and gouge them out; didn’t threaten to reach into his throat and pull out his trachea. They didn’t talk about murdering or hurting him in a way that lacked some kind of humanity, in a way.

The ghosts in the mausoleum did not need to threaten him.

Still, Klaus did not die.

He stopped screaming, stopped crying, stopped begging. He let himself unfurl and shatter more than he thought he physically could.

There is always more that can be broken.

At some point, his hands stopped glowing. The sun rose, the sun set. The sun rose again, the sun set again. Then it rose once more and morning light flooded in as the doors groaned open. The ghosts fled from the light as if they were afraid of it.

Klaus didn’t move. He rolled his eyes to the doors. He could only see clearly out of one of them, but he could see Reginald there, staring down at what should have been a corpse. And only then did the mercy of darkness devour him.

Luther doesn’t know what happened. He had asked. Klaus had only smiled and told him the truth. _“You don’t want to know.”_

Reginald did not talk to Klaus. For a while, Klaus was completely fine with that. He was too busy in the infirmary with Grace and Pogo stitching him back together, too busy trying to stitch his mind back together. He drifted in and out of reality for a long time; left the shell of his body and detached himself from that damaged prison, let Grace – and, as time passed and Luther came to the realisation that something was terribly wrong, Luther helped too – nudge his _~~corpse~~_ body in whatever direction it needed to go in. He didn’t care what happened to it as long as he was safe and far away from everything.

And then, he simply came back to it suddenly. He felt as if he was in a car at the highest speed it could go at and he’d just driven right into a wall, so violently thrown back into his body, and he felt things again. Felt things so violently that when he couldn’t cry anymore, he simply laughed.

He looks at the date.

It is the twenty-third of March, twenty-nineteen. It is past eleven at night. Everyone is asleep except for him and Ben.

His name is Klaus, Number Four, Hargreeves. He is twenty-nine years old and he is alive.

His feet are silent on the floor. A clock ticks in the hallway like the splatter of blood against stone and he still flinches, twitches, in time with it. He stays silent, though.

He opens the doors to Reginald’s room. He still looks inhuman, even in sleep.

Klaus stands at the side of his bed, right by his head, looking down at him.

Something burns in him.

Klaus leans over and lifts the pillow from the other side of the bed.

When Reginald’s eyes peak over the pillow when he jerks, he does not look surprised at all to find Klaus above him, teeth grinding together, sobbing dryly while he holds the pillow down on him.

He stops moving. Klaus’ fingers prod his neck and find no pulse. He takes the pillow aside and for a long moment, he just stares at Reginald. His ghost doesn’t appear.

Klaus sets the pillow back down, closes Reginald’s eyes, and leaves as if he was never there.

His name is Klaus Hargreeves, he is twenty-nine years old, he is still alive, somehow, and he just killed his own father. He repeats this to himself.

He stops crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just add the angst up ten notches, why don't I?  
> Please let me know what you thought in the comments! I'd love to hear it!
> 
> Also, if I got the date wrong for Reginald's death, please let me know! Five returns on the 24th with, technically, 8 days until the apocalypse and on the day of the funeral, so I assume Reginald died the day/night before on the 23rd but let me know if I am wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

“Is dad not coming down for breakfast?”

Klaus’ eyes flick to Luther sitting opposite him, eying Grace as she pours a cup of coffee by their father’s empty chair.

“Your father hasn’t come down yet and you know he doesn’t like to be disturbed in his bedroom, dear,” says Grace. “I’m sure he’ll be down soon enough.”

Klaus looks down at his own breakfast. Pancakes and a blueberry smiley face, again.

Luther shifts in his chair. “He wanted to talk to me,” Luther says. “About another possible mission. It’d be the first in a while.” His eyes bounce towards the clock. It’s early in the morning, just after quarter past seven. They had woken up earlier because of the possibility of Reginald talking to Luther about a potential mission. It had seemed, to Klaus, that Luther had been a little distant to Reginald as well, especially after returning from the moon a few months ago. Enough so that he hadn’t really gone on any missions, either. And it seemed, too, that while trying to dig his claws back into Klaus, he had been trying to dig them into Luther as well in some kind of attempt to reform the Umbrella Academy.

Pretty bad timing for what he had done then, but Klaus found that, though his emotions were a complex bundle, all interwoven and incomprehensible, he could find little remorse in it. There had been relief and, somehow, even more hurt. He had never wanted things to end this way, but he isn’t sure he’d take back his actions either.

“Don’t worry, dear,” says Grace. She nods her head to Luther’s plate. “Eat up, now.”

Klaus twists his fingers into the hem of his shirt, grinding his teeth together.

A steady tapping announces Pogo’s entrance. He watches him as he says nothing to either him or Luther, instead heading straight to Grace. He murmurs something low to her, hushed. A scalding drop of coffee rolls over her fingers and drips in slow motion to the table. Klaus can’t stop seeing blood everywhere.

She steps outside with Pogo. Luther’s eyes follow them.

“Something’s wrong,” he mutters. Klaus glances briefly at him.

He didn’t think of consequences. The only thing he had been thinking about was the anger and the pain. Pogo must know, though, he must. What will they do? Luther will be furious. Maybe Luther will kill him. Will they send him to prison? He’s already been, so it doesn’t matter. Will they say he’s unstable and send him to some psych ward? He’s already been to one, it doesn’t matter. Kick him out? He’s lived on the streets before. They can’t do anything to him that’s not already been done or that he doesn’t want. He’ll be fine no matter what.

Klaus shrugs. He won’t hand himself over, though. He’ll wait until confronted and then he’ll own up to it.

He listens to Grace’s footsteps get further away and, faintly, he hears her pick up the phone and punch in numbers. Pogo returns to the kitchen, hands on his cane, looking resigned.

“Boys, I have some news,” he sighs, blinking and looking aside. Luther sits up immediately, alert, and Klaus pretends to look innocent, oblivious.

“What is it, Pogo?” Luther demands.

“Your father… he passed away last night.”

Luther’s lips part and he stares incredulously at Pogo. “What?”

“He passed in his sleep last night,” Pogo repeats, words heavy, mournful. “I am sorry. This was unexpected and there was nothing I could do by the time I found him.”

“Dad’s dead,” Luther repeats. His face grows pale, slack, full of disbelief. Klaus looks to the window. He can still feel how glass had crunched beneath his fists as he attempted to get out the windows.

Pogo looks down at his hands, clasped together on the head of his cane. “I am sorry,” he repeats. Klaus looks back at him and he watches as he lifts his head and catch Klaus’ gaze.

He doesn’t call him out.

Klaus gets up, muttering something, and leaves his breakfast untouched. He returns to his bedroom as sirens get closer and closer to the Academy, and he sits down on the edge of his bed.

“They’ll find out,” Ben murmurs. Klaus isn’t entirely sure how Ben feels about what he had done. He had been there when he had done it and he can’t remember whether or not he had told him to stop. He had also been there in the mausoleum, though Klaus lost him, eventually, when the other ghosts began to crowd him and he couldn’t differentiate the yelling.

“I don’t care,” says Klaus. He doesn’t. His teeth grind together. “He could have stopped it. He could have helped. There’s a camera in there, he would have been watching me.” He turns his head away, swallows, and then he stands up, reaches under his mattress for his money, and then he climbs out of the fire escape.

###

At the very least, Luther doesn’t comment on him being high this time. He sees Klaus sitting in front of the fire, uninjured eye with a pupil blown wide and he only sighs and keeps his comments to himself.

“They couldn’t resuscitate him,” he reports. “He must have passed earlier in the night.”

Klaus hums his acknowledgement.

“We’re… Pogo is going to reach out to the others. We’re going to have a memorial tonight for him. We’re going to go through his stuff, as well. Organise it, file it away. Pogo and Grace are doing most of that, but you could help them if you want to.”

Klaus shrugs. Luther lingers, shifting awkwardly.

“Did you notice anything about dad recently, Klaus?”

Finally, Klaus turns to look at him. Luther eyes him, holds his gaze steadily. Klaus shakes his head. “No, no, I’ve not,” he states. He rises to his feet, walking past him and lingering in the doorway. “I’ll go help mom and Pogo, then.”

Luther is suspicious then. Maybe not of Klaus himself but of the situation no less, which is not good for Klaus for obvious reasons. Although he had told Ben that he doesn’t care whether or not he or anyone else finds out that he was the cause of Reginald’s death, that doesn’t mean that he is going to flaunt it about. Ideally, they would have a memorial, accept that Reginald had passed in his sleep, and they would all move on. Maybe, with Reginald gone, Klaus could begin to feel like himself. The fear that haunted him day in and day out, in every waking moment and every time he closed his eyes, when he fell asleep, when his mind wandered, it might all leave him. The pain and fear would leave and he would shake himself free of the mausoleum and free of Reginald, and he could just be himself again.

_(Klaus had thought, upon falling into the mausoleum, that he wouldn’t be as scared. It had been over a decade since he had actually been inside the mausoleum. He had thought that, maybe, he would realise that the nightmares and flashbacks were only remnants of childhood fear exaggerated by his own twisted mind and he would come to realise that it wasn’t as horrific as he had thought. He was nearly thirty years old – the ghosts might scare him, but they couldn’t terrify him so thoroughly like they had as a child. He was wrong.)_

He just had to keep up the charade of Reginald’s innocent passing and it would all be fine.

He did head up the stairs to seek out Pogo and Grace. He could hear Grace’s shoes clicking on the floor and he found her inside of Reginald’s office, rearranging things on shelves and desks. There were a few piles of paper and folders that had been stacked in perfection along his desk.

Grace turns to look at him, offering a smile. “Hello, dear, is everything okay?”

“Luther said you might need help,” he states, lingering in the doorway. He feels as if Reginald might be just around the corner, ready to step out and scold him for coming into his office unsummoned.

“Oh, that’d be great, dear. If you would just stack any folders and files together neatly, there are some boxes you could put them in. If you aren’t sure about something, just ask me.”

Klaus grunts his acknowledgement and then he tries to lose himself in the motion. His fingers scrape together random paper, files, folders, and then set aside them all in boxes. Grace goes through his more personal things, humming a gentle tune to herself.

At some point, Pogo comes in and Grace leaves with him, leaving Klaus alone to start sifting through Reginald’s stuff. Alone, Klaus can’t help but let curiosity get the better of him. What kind of secrets are hiding in here? Just what files is he shoving aside?

There are a lot of letters that Klaus doesn’t care much for. Letters to important people that Klaus doesn’t recognise, a whole talk of politics, of deals. Letters in multiple different languages, some Klaus can’t name. There are things dated years back to his childhood that he does remember; events held for the Umbrella Academy to gain more publicity and news coverage; multiple letters, word for word the same, to multiple different tattoo artists. Building plans, trading, travelling, even hunting.

He finds notes on them, too. A lot of notes on them. He picks up one file, eying the scrawled label of _Number Five_ with curiosity and a deep ache in his bones. He flicks through it briefly, catching a few sentences, ending with the date of his disappearance. Klaus sets the folder in a box.

He moves to sit on the chair behind his desk, opening a drawer and reaching inside to look at the folders in there. _Number Three,_ the one in his hand is labelled, full of words like _manipulative, narcissistic, insufferable._

There is one labelled _Number Six._ Ben scoffs at the sight but leans close anyway, peering over Klaus’ shoulder. It says things likes _compliant, grotesque, desperate._

Ben huffs, blinking a few times and moving silently to stand by the window, arms folded over his chest. Klaus throws the file away.

He picks up the next, and it is titled _Number Four._ He pauses at it, holding it between his two hands as if weighing it between them. His thumb flips it open. He isn’t surprised to see the majority of words repeating themselves. _Cowardly, childish, morbid, disappointing, weak._ Not as if he hasn't heard those words from Reginald's lips before, but now they dig beneath his skin like maggots ( _fitting for a corpse like himself_ ) and there's that desperation rising in him again. He had tried to be better, once. Tried not to be so afraid. But even now, he is terrified, so cowardly terrified. Maybe that is ust how he is supposed to be.

He closes it, inhales slowly, and then throws it out the window. Ben startles slightly, turning to fix him with a questioning look; eyebrows arched, unimpressed. Klaus shrugs.

“He doesn’t need any of this,” he mutters. He goes to the next drawer. More files. Each one with _Number Four_ written on it is thrown out of the window. Discarded carelessly, thrown from his fingertips as if with disgust. 

He reaches for the next drawer down, a much larger one on the left side. It slides open with a weight to it and yet when Klaus looks at it, there’s one thin folder in it.

_Number Seven._

There are, quite literally, only a few pieces of paper to it. It details attempts and fails to find Vanya’s powers and her medical history and then the realisation that Vanya simply doesn’t have, and never has had, powers.

Klaus drops it into a box. He turns his attention back to the seemingly empty drawer, running his fingers along the bottom, nails scratching along the edge. His other hand grips the handle and gives it a light shake, enough to feel the weight to it that only ensures him that something must be there.

Then his fingers brush a catch. The bottom falls out of place loosely and his fingers curl around it to pull it out, reaching past it to brush over the smooth surface of an intricate and expensive looking box. He holds it up to the light, eyes narrowed. There is a lock on it and he can’t open it. He can’t find the key anywhere and it isn’t in the false bottom of the drawer either.

Something important enough to be hidden in such a way, locked away. He wonders what might be in it. No doubt something Reginald would absolutely not want Klaus’ hands being on; or anyone else’s.

He can’t get it open though. No amount of prying tears the lid off and he can’t bang it against the corner of the desk hard enough without surely drawing the attention of Pogo or Grace, who might know what is inside and not want Klaus to see it either.

Something important, he thinks. Reginald would probably hate to see it anywhere other than some locked and chained safe dug deeper than a nuclear war bunker.

So Klaus throws it out of the window and listens to it clatter against a dumpster outside.

He puts the false bottom back onto the drawer and closes it.

More letters, more building plans, more folders. None are that interesting anymore. He chucks them carelessly in different boxes until they are full. When he’s fed up with it he rises to his feet in a clumsy motion, knees aching, one hand steadying himself on the corner of the desk. His eyes search out a clock and then he settles against the edge of the desk, eyes turning towards the window. A car passes by.

He hasn’t quite yet really thought about the situation he is in. He isn’t really sure how he is supposed to do that, either. Make a step by step plan, written out, numbered, in a little notebook with his name on it? Is he supposed to feel a certain way, act a certain way?

There are facts, he thinks. Stick to the facts. It is a bad situation with the potential to become much worse if he lets emotions rule him again.

The fact is that he killed his father. The fact is that he is a murderer. The fact is that he doesn’t regret it. It wasn’t satisfactory or pleasant. He doesn’t feel as at ease as he had thought he had. Had he even really been thinking when he had done it? Not really. Whenever he thought all he could think about was hands on him, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, tearing and grabbing and pushing and pulling. Screams, his own, the ghosts’, Ben’s, they all filtered through as if someone had suddenly pressed play on an audio recording of that night.

_(He knows Ben had been screaming, but for how long he isn’t entirely sure. He heard him at the very beginning but it all became rather indistinguishable rather quickly. There was screaming. Did it really matter who it was from?)_

So no, he hadn’t really been thinking about what he was doing. He had been thinking about what had been done. Perhaps he had been thinking about the other times he was shoved in there as a child. Perhaps he had been thinking about the scars that would remain with him forever, a constant reminder that would greet him whenever he looked in the mirror, or maybe it was the way he could close his left eye and the remaining sight of his right one was irreparably poor and would be forever, or the way his throat feels raw, his voice still a little raspy. 

He had felt cold, he thinks. He had been so cold that night; nothing more than the clothes on his back and left for nights in the mausoleum had him shivering, his teeth chattering, but it was nothing compared to the cold that flooded him when his hands had begun to glow. An entirely different kind of cold that stole his breath and paralysed him in fear.

But that was done. What happened in the mausoleum is done; what he did to Reginald is _done_. He needs to focus on the now.

But really, does it matter much? If they phone the police on him, he’ll run. If Luther gets mad and hurts him, he’ll let him. Maybe Luther could do what he had tried so hard and failed to do. If they kick him out, he’ll return to surviving like he always had.

Klaus decides he had never really been good at making plans in the first place, preferring to act on impulse and adapt as the situation needed. It always worked out in the end.

Klaus pushes off the table and leaves the room, heading to his bedroom once more.

“What are you thinking?” Ben asks him curiously, leaning against his wall. Klaus shrugs one shoulder half-heartedly.

“Trying not to,” he mutters, voice flat. Ben’s eyes follow him as he crouches down to reach beneath his bed, feeling for a hole in his mattress. He pulls out his newest bag of Heaven and begins to sort short lines using an old spoon still in his room. He sits back and eyes his usual dose and then he pauses. He adds another line, because he really doesn’t want to risk maintaining any sense of reality or coherency, and then returns the bag to its place.

Ben doesn’t say anything as he takes it all quickly.

He’s been lost for words for a while anyway. What could he say anyway? Klaus doesn’t much care what he thinks about the situation – decides he doesn’t care about much at all.

At least he doesn’t have to be so hyperaware of not thinking about that night when he’s so high. He simply lets himself lay down on the floor and enjoy the freedom from the constant fear that devours him nowadays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Siblings coming soon! I'd love to hear what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!

Klaus hears the door open.

Peeling his eyes open, he turns to stare at his bedroom door. The front doors groan open and, quiet, faint, footsteps click their way inside. The doors swing slowly shut and then thud together.

“Suppose that’s everyone coming now,” Ben comments quietly, too watching the door from his spot on Klaus’ bed. Klaus shrugs one shoulder and slumps back onto the floor, setting his head down and looking up at the ceiling.

“How long’s it been?” He asks. Ben hums uncertainly.

“Years,” he says vaguely. Klaus hears a small rustle of paper as he turns the page in his book before closing it and setting it aside. “Not counting Luther.”

“Obviously,” replies Klaus. He lifts his hand into the air and wiggles his fingers, watching them melt into the pale ceiling before he brings his hand back down, closer to himself, and they distinguish themselves once more. He sets his hand onto his cheek and turns his face into his own touch, eyes fluttering closed. Had there been any motivation to get up, sober up, and go greet his siblings as they come in, it’s quickly gone in favour of laying on the floor, head propped up slightly on his hand.

“Are you going to get up?”

“Mm.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Mm.” Klaus shrugs his shoulders. Get up and do what? Greet his siblings with a smile and open arms? Bring out a cheese platter, sit around the fireplace and discuss the weather? He’d rather not. In an ideal world, they would forget he exists entirely. If he’s lucky, Luther will leave him be (unlikely since Luther knows, for a fact, that Klaus is here) and none of his siblings will know he’s here and just assume he’s not coming for the funeral.

What Klaus is sure a few seconds pass by before he hears the front doors open again, but Ben has moved to sit by the window and resumed his reading, which Klaus does not remember seeing him do. He listens to the footsteps, heavier than the first however long ago, and listens to the doors thud shut once more. Soon, or maybe not so soon – he hasn’t really got the best grip on time at the moment – he hears the door open and more footsteps one last time. He remains on the floor, mostly unmoving, staring at where the floor meets his wall.

There is writing there. In a tiny, nearly unreadable scrawl, written at an awkward angle. He runs his fingertips over it.

He doesn’t remember some of the writing spread around his bedroom. Sometimes it was done in a haze – sleep deprived, panicked after a nightmare, high. Sometimes it was as if he blacked out. He would zone out for a while and when he realised he had blacked out or lost time, he would be sitting on his bedroom floor with a pen in his hand, his walls covered. Sometimes, more so when he was younger, when he didn’t completely ignore every single ghost, he’d listen to them and write whatever it was they were saying.

He shuffles ever so slightly closer to the wall, stretched out on his stomach, eyes narrowed as he tries to read it.

_HOW DO I KNOW WHO I AM?_

His lips mouth the words. He isn’t sure what about it is but his breath catches in his throat and he stares at the words as if he’s hypnotised by them. His fingers ghost over the sentence again.

He tries not to confront that side of things. The idea, the fact, that he is a different person now. He knows he’s acting weird and yet he isn’t sure on how he used to act, how to pretend to act like he did.

There’s a knock at his door only a second before it inches open.

“Klaus?” It’s Luther. “Everyone else is here. Are you coming down?” Klaus doesn’t respond. He can’t look away from the writing in front of him. Another moment passes.

Before, Klaus might have laughed. Luther must feel so terribly awkward, staring at Klaus, outstretched on the floor of his bedroom rather than his perfectly comfortable bed, happily high. But that was before and Klaus isn’t sure how to laugh.

“Are you alright?”

He doesn’t expect that question, though Luther has been nicer to him since that night. He’s trying, in his own Luther way, he thinks.

He finally forces his eyes away from the writing, then forces himself upright, hands on the wall so that he could turn to look at Luther. He nods and heaves himself upright onto his feet. He follows Luther out of his room, eying his back.

Still, he doesn’t feel guilty, but a growing sense of paranoia, certainly unaided by the drugs. He’s going to find out soon, and then what? He can imagine Luther’s face contorting in pain, his lips parting in shock, eyes blowing wide. He can imagine walking into the room he’s in after he has found out. He imagines Luther’s eyes locking onto him, imagines them narrowing in hurt and anger. Imagines his fist grabbing his shirt, forcing him to back up against the wall as he yelled out his anger and grief.

But then Klaus feels angry. It wasn’t as if that was the only thing Reginald had ever done to him. Had he managed to hit his head right in the mausoleum, it would be the opposite situation. Would he have been angry with Reginald like he would be with Klaus?

“Klaus?”

He realises he had stopped. He relaxes his shoulders, nods his head, and keeps walking after him.

Everyone is in the living room. The sight of all of his siblings – minus Five – all there, together, is near daunting. He feels awkward, trailing after Luther. He feels as if they are all looking at him with something dark and suspicious in their eyes, and so he lifts his head a little and walks around Luther to get to a couch. Only when he’s sitting down does he let his eyes bounce over each sibling.

They all look well. They look healthy, not really upset – not surprising, though – and they all look characteristically like themselves. Allison, her makeup done, hair pulled over her shoulders, her outfit all put together with a nice necklace and bracelet. Vanya is quiet, small, sitting by herself and fading easily into the background, hands folded on her lap. Then there is Diego, standing by the fireplace with his arms folded across the knives still strapped to his chest, as if they are permanent there.

And they are all looking at him. Not with that suspicion Klaus had first assumed, but rather with some twisted curiosity, something near concern and maybe even a little disgust, eying his blown pupils and clumsy movements.

“Didn’t know you were staying here,” Diego comments. He catches his eyes. He can see underlying concern, can see many different questions. _Why did you come back here? What happened? What’s wrong?_

Klaus shrugs and looks at the fire. “Didn’t think everybody would come,” he returns, glancing over everyone.

“Didn’t think Reginald could ever die,” Diego jokes, but it falls flat. Reginald had seemed immortal, untouchable. And yet Klaus had killed him in his own bed with his own hands. It would have been so easy to have done it years ago, to have stopped him before he could have even done half of the stuff he had to them.

Klaus hums, not trusting himself to not say something incriminating or morbid.

“I think we should get this started, then,” says Luther, clearing his throat. He starts talking and Klaus zones out, staring at the fire crackling away. The flames morph and dance before his eyes, though no one else seems to pay them any attention so he assumes it is only himself seeing that. Which, he thinks, is a slight shame. It’s no doubt more interesting than discussing Reginald’s memorial.

That is, at least, until Luther says something that catches his attention.

“I don’t like it. Something is wrong, I can’t believe that dad just passed away. He was healthy, there was no indication that something could have been wrong. And plus,” his voice pauses for a moment now, and Klaus is staring at him intently. “Pogo won’t let me see the coroner’s report.”

Diego raises an eyebrow. “What about it?” He asks.

“The entire thing is suspicious, Diego. I’m not sure what happened, but I can’t believe that he passed away naturally,” he states. Diego shares a look with Allison.

“You think he was murdered?” He scoffs. “What, just because Pogo won’t let you see the coroner’s report? What did he even say about it? Dad was getting old, Luther. He was paranoid and probably delusional, not murdered.”

Luther doesn’t look convinced. “Pogo said he passed from a heart attack,” he replies. “But he won’t let me see it in the report.”

Diego shrugs. “And? There’s no need for it. Pogo’s seen it and unless you think Pogo murdered him, it doesn’t really matter.”

Luther presses his lips together, shifting on the spot and shaking his head. “No,” he says adamantly. “I don’t think so.”

“If there was a break in, someone would have noticed,” Vanya points out.

Luther’s eyes flick to Klaus then. Klaus stays still, elbows on his knees, staring back at him. Then he shakes his head slowly and looks back towards the fireplace.

“Don’t tell me you think _Klaus_ killed him,” Diego laughs, looking between them. “That’s low, Luther.”

Luther huffs a breath, opening and closing his mouth for a moment.

Klaus doesn’t move. Then he thinks what he would usually do, so he laughs, slumping his shoulders.

“Yeah, I killed him,” he says, a little breathily, his hands shaking as he unfolds his legs from his chest and rises onto his feet. “I got up and decided to have a little sparring match with the old man and murder him in his own bed and leave no trace.”

It’s what he would say. It’s how he would joke about it. But his tone is so obviously false, as if he’s following a script.

He leaves the room.

The moment he enters his bedroom he seeks out his cigarettes, shoving past his lips and inhaling deeply as he lights it, until his lungs start to burn and his throat feels hot.

“That’s one way to say it,” says Ben.

“Shut up,” Klaus hisses, eyes wild. “Fuck off, Ben.”

Ben raises an eyebrow at him. He falls against his wall by his window, watching a cat in the alleyway below, cigarette hardly leaving his lips. When it’s done, he stubs it out and flicks it away and lights a new one, and then he falls onto his knees by his bed and digs out the baggie of remaining coke. There isn’t a lot left in it, but there’s some and that’s enough.

He’s only just opened the baggie when his door opens without a knock. He flinches and looks up, eyes wide and falling on Diego, hovering in his doorway and staring at the plastic bag hanging from his fingertips.

“I would too if Luther accused me of murder,” he simply says. Klaus’ fist curls around the bag, hiding it from sight. Diego wanders a few steps inside the bedroom.

“What are you doing?” Klaus asks defensively, sitting back and leaning against the wall.

“Can you blame me for being curious?” He quirks an eyebrow. Klaus’ eyes narrow.

“Well, go be interested about dad’s memorial,” he dismisses.

“What’s up with you?” He asks, blunt, and Klaus flinches. What is wrong with him? Why is he acting weird? What does he feel?

He feels scared. The ghosts can touch him and they wouldn’t stop and he can still feel it; still feel their hands, their nails, hear their screams drowning out his own. And when might it happen again? He’s scared to be sober; more than he ever has been. He’s terrified for the day that his powers lash out and they come for him again. He’s terrified that they will kill him the next time, and he’ll be stuck in the mausoleum with them, just some angry ghost trapped there.

He’s dreamt that before. Dying and being trapped in that mausoleum, pounding on the walls with silent fists, screaming for help that would never come, watching the Academy from the windows. His despair would turn to fury as he watched people pass by the windows and never come out to help him, and he’d turn into exactly what the other ghosts in there are like.

Klaus stares at Diego. Then he ignores him, turning to the bag in his hands and opening it up. By the time he’s poured only the tiniest bit into the palm of his opposite hand Diego has hurried over and snatched the bag right out of his hand and nudged his other one so that the powder falls from his hand, as if Diego thinks Klaus is above snorting coke off his floor, so long as it does its job.

“At least talk to me, bro,” he says, frowning. Klaus stares at him, grinding his teeth together. “You look like shit.”

“I’m fine.”

“What’s that from?” He asks, eyebrow raised, and he gestures at Klaus’ face.

“That’s my face.”

Diego gives him a look. “The scars, Klaus.”

Klaus glares at him. “Leave me alone, Diego,” he snaps, one hand hovering nearby his mouth as if trying to subconsciously hide some of his face. One of his fingers twitch closer to his face, follow along his jaw until it comes into contact with raised, pink skin. Diego huffs, frustrated, shifting on the spot.

Poor him, Klaus thinks bitterly, not being able to give himself a clap on the back for being a good brother because Klaus is refusing his help, refusing to confide in him.

For a long moment, they just stare at one another. Neither says anything. Then Diego nods, looks away, and says; “fine.”

He turns on his heels and leaves the room without another word and Klaus slumps against the wall. He closes his eyes, feeling suddenly exhausted and almost a little disappointed. He drops his head into his hands, pulls his knees up to his chest.

He’s getting too emotional. Too paranoid, too afraid (he realises that Reginald was never wrong about how much of a coward he is, why is he always so afraid?) and it’s almost frustrating. He breathes slowly, deeply, and then he stands up.

###

“Master Klaus.”

Klaus startles, turning to face Pogo, hovering in the kitchen doorway. _Pogo won’t let me see the coroner’s report._

“Hmm?”

“You were helping Grace organise your father’s office earlier, weren’t you?”

He hates how unreadable Pogo is. He’s worse than what Five was like, and Klaus is only realising that now. But generally, the situation surrounding Reginald’s death wasn’t suspicious, no one ought to look too deeply into it. But if they had, then why is Pogo standing here, looking him in the eyes, and not allowing Luther access to the coroner’s report?

“Yeah,” Klaus says with a nod of his head, leaning back against the table.

“Did you happen to come across an ornate box with pearl inlay? It is missing from your father’s office and the contents of that box are valuable.”

Klaus hums, more curious than anything.

“Isn’t that curious?” Ben muses, giving him a look. Klaus returns the look with one of his own.

“No, I don’t remember anything like that,” he says. “I’ll keep my eyes open.” He offers a nod of his head and holds Pogo’s gaze, as if just challenging him. If Pogo recognises it for what it is, he doesn’t rise to the bait. He simply nods his head and turns around, leaving Klaus alone in the kitchen.

Slumping against the table, Klaus looks down at his feet, lips pressed together. He’ll go look for the box later. He’s more concerned about what game Pogo is playing with him. He’d have thought that Pogo would have either confronted him or, at the very least, hinted to Luther about it.

He listens to the tapping of his cane retreat further and further away from him, echoing in his skull like the drip, drip, drip of blood, and all of a sudden he can hear that clearly and he flinches. He grinds his teeth together, closes his eyes only to open them quickly when images flash on the back of his eyelids.

And then there’s a flash of blue.

The constant flow of fear is something Klaus is used to, but the instinctual spike of pure terror that rises up in his guts at the sight of that colour, that glow, is something breath-taking, and he drops down onto the ground, hands over his head.

He knew it was going to happen again. He knew it.

Ben’s voice filters in over the pounding of his heart.

“Klaus, Klaus, it isn’t you,” he says, “it isn’t you. It’s coming from outside – the others are coming, Klaus. It isn’t you.”

He doesn’t feel the chill in his bones like he did when his hands had glowed, though. He can’t bring himself to open his eyes and look, though, can’t bring himself to stand up, do anything except for cower on the floor. Even when he hears footsteps flood the kitchen, hear his siblings call to one another, and they run right past Klaus without stopping.

Klaus is fine with that. He doesn’t want to see what the source of the blue light is, as if he could even uncurl himself from his spot on the floor to get up and check in the first place. He focuses more so on trying to breathe steadier, trying to feel tiles beneath his fingers rather than cold, blood-damp stone.

Wind howls outside, loud and violent, and he jams his hands against his ears to try and shut it out. It isn’t him. He knows, too, that he’s too high to see ghosts and therefore let alone make them corporeal. But the flash of blue is what he saw seconds before they had descended upon him.

Klaus leans back against the table, feels it dig into his back. His hands are pale when he opens his eyes, no blue glow emanating from them, and he breathes out another sigh of relief. The wind outside slowly dies down, calming ever so slightly, ceases to batter against the window like his own fists.

There’s another flash. One that startles Klaus and makes him flinch, his breath hitch in his throat, but not as bad as before. He looks up, eyes wide, and his eyes land on someone he certainly hadn’t expected to see ever again. Five, looking just as he had the day he had run off – and Klaus remembers it in perfect detail – and looking a little confused to see Klaus on the floor. But the doors open and break the tension between them and Five looks elsewhere in the kitchen.

Klaus clambers upright onto his feet. His siblings storm in after Five all in various states of confusion, hurrying after him. Five doesn’t pay any of them any mind.

Klaus looks at Ben. He feels a bit like he has whiplash, trying to grapple with multiple situations at once. Is he high enough to hallucinate? He almost wishes all of this is a hallucination and he’s still on his bedroom floor, caressing a scribble on his wall, before Luther has even come upstairs and called him down to talk about the memorial.

But Ben nods. “He’s here,” he confirms. “Alive and well, apparently.”

Klaus just leans against the table, watching Five, who he knew wasn’t dead but never knew what else he could be. He had never expected to see Five again, alive or dead, honestly. He had given up on that, though not easily.

“What’s the date?” Five asks, heading towards the calendar hanging up on the wall. “The exact date?”

“The twenty-fourth,” says Vanya, sitting down around the kitchen table.

“Of?”

“March.”

“Are we going to talk about what just happened?” Luther asks, raising an eyebrow. Five doesn’t respond and Luther huffs out a breath, rising quickly to his feet. It’s easy to forget how large Luther is, each time he stands up a shock to the system. He unfolds and when Klaus thinks he ought to stop standing upright, he keeps going, puffing out his chest and rolling his broad shoulders back. “It’s been seventeen years.”

Five looks up at that, a cold glint in his eyes as he scoffs. “It’s been a lot longer than that,” he says, only adding to their confusion. Then, when Luther doesn’t budge either, Five disappears through space right in front of him, going elsewhere. Luther’s jaw tics, lips pressing together and shoulders slumping.

“Didn’t miss that,” he mutters, turning to look at him.

“Where’d you go?” Asks Diego. His arms are folded over his chest, his eyes staring at the kitchen table. He looks bitterly amused, as if now suddenly angry that Five is here and fine when he might have been dead.

“The future,” says Five, eying a can in his hand. “It’s shit, by the way.”

No one says anything. Five continues to murmur something to himself, something Klaus doesn’t quite get. His eyes follow Five as he goes back and forth, his hands move swiftly to piece together a sandwich.

Klaus zones out as they continue to talk. Five says things that go over his head and Klaus just watches him. At some point, Five lifts his head and catches his gaze. He can’t tell what he’s feeling or what he’s thinking, but he holds his gaze for several moments, cold as steel, and then he looks down at his sandwich and begins to stride towards the door.

“Is that it?” Asks Allison, raising an eyebrow.

“What else is there to say? It’s the circle of life,” Five says over his shoulder, as if his reappearance isn’t something they had all wanted since he left, as if it isn’t a big deal. No one follows him. No one asks him questions.

They all leave, all filter out of the kitchen, somewhat dazed, stuck in some disbelief.

Klaus falls into an empty chair by the table. He stares at the cutting board Five had left out, smeared with a little peanut butter on it.

Klaus looks down at his hands.

He stares at his hands throughout the memorial. Pretends not to feel the weight of Pogo’s gaze, pretends not to feel a pillow clenched between his fingers, his shoulders straining as he bears down with all his weight. He stares at his hands _(he thrusts his hand up, past them all, and Ben’s hand grabs his, fingers interlocking together. Ben tries to pull him away, tries to shove through the others, and Klaus clings to him desperately. Then another hand grabs his wrist and pulls them apart and Klaus doesn’t find him again until the doors open)_ as Luther pours Reginald’s ashes out and looks at them all with suspicion, and Five looks at them with disappointment, and Grace keeps smiling.

Klaus laughs. He clamps one hand over his mouth when it slips out, lets everyone believe it’s because of Luther and Diego’s characteristic bickering. The head of Ben’s statue hits the floor and Klaus watches it roll, and then he sits down on a bench outside as everyone goes back inside, hiding from the rain.

Ben sits down next to him. He says something – maybe a joke about his statue – that Klaus doesn’t pick up. He feels like he’s swinging between decisions, between emotions. Does he feel bad? Does he revel in it? Can he try and shake off Reginald’s presence, shake off the past and move on? Or has he just gone and shackled himself into something worse?

He stands up, finds his way to the pile of Reginald’s ashes and crouches in front of them, elbows on his knees. He tips his head to the side. Reginald is just a pile of ashes now, and he did that.

He closes his eyes, resting his head against his fist, and a lazy smile spreads his lips.

“I’m not scared of you anymore,” he murmurs. “Not anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I'd love to hear what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!

Klaus can’t sleep that night.

It’s not an uncommon thing – never has been, really, for as long as he can remember – and so, when an hour passes and he’s awake as ever in his bed, he gives up trying to fall asleep. He sits upright in bed and rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes.

He looks around his room, brightly lit with fairy lights and lamps, enough so it might give some people a migraine. He’d prefer that over the darkness without the lights.

“What do you think about Five?”

Klaus turns to look at Ben, trying to make casual conversation. He is sat by the window, arms folded over his chest, hood up. Klaus shrugs, kicking his legs out of his bed.

“What is there to think?” He returns. “He’s back.”

“Well, there’s a lot to think about, really,” Ben says. “How he got back, why he came back, why he looks thirteen, what he meant about being in the future, what he meant by saying it has been longer than seventeen years; you know, a lot of stuff.”

Klaus rolls his eyes. “Well, you can ponder on that by yourself,” he mutters. He stretches himself out, bones cracking, and then he rises up onto his feet and tries to think of what to do to keep himself busy.

_Clean your traces, murderer._

He grimaces at the sudden thought, pressing his lips together. He rubs his head as if nursing a migraine. No, he left no traces, he’s fine. As fine as he can be with Pogo (and therefore probably Grace too) knowing what he’d done and Luther on his trail.

Then he thinks back to that ornate box full of valuables from Reginald’s office that Pogo seems intent on getting back.

He shoves his arms through a jacket and grabs his packet of cigarettes. Instead of going downstairs and out the door, he opens up his window, disrupting Ben, and clambers out onto the fire escape. He lingers in the chill of the air outside, revelling the gentle breeze on his cheeks, and then he digs out his cigarettes from his jacket pocket, lighting one up.

As he does so, he turns to look at the alleyway below him and the dumpster which is his next destination. His eyes narrow, brows furrowing, and he plucks the cigarette from his lips, waving his other hand.

“Hey!” He calls, slowly clambering down the fire escape, eyes on the figure by the dumpster. The man startles, turning to look at Klaus with wide eyes, then turns and takes off out of the alleyway, arms full. Klaus shares a confused look with Ben before rolling his eyes and going up to the dumpster. He leans over the edge, straining to see in the poor light of the alleyway.

The files that he had flung outside earlier are gone. All of the loose paper or folders that Reginald had written on him are gone and Klaus realises that that must have been what the man was holding. The Academy always had weird fans, but he had assumed that had died off years ago.

Nonetheless, Klaus brushes the incident aside and turns his attention to finding the ornate box. He tosses aside trash and leans right over the edge, cigarette held tightly between his lips.

“Are you actually going to give that back to Pogo?” Ben asks. Klaus scoffs.

“No,” he says, mumbled. “Not until I see what’s inside, since it’s so important. Unless that creep took it.”

He throws aside another trash bag and there, in all its taunting glory, is the box. He swipes it up and falls back out of the dumpster and holds it up. It looks as if the man hadn’t gotten his hands on it, luckily, and Klaus almost grins in victory.

He searches the inside of his jacket pocket and pulls out a hair clip, straightens it out, then jams it into the keyhole of the box. He flops down onto the floor, lips pursed together in concentration. Too dark to properly see in the alleyway, however, Klaus huffs a sigh and stands up, tucking the box beneath his arm and pulling himself back up the fire escape and into his bedroom via the window.

He chucks the box onto his bed, hears whatever is inside clatter as it bounces, then follows it, falling onto his bed and grimacing at the groan it emits. He holds it up to the light, tries to jam his fingers between it and pry it open unsuccessfully. He eyes it, continues to jam the hair clip into it and try to unlock it.

The box doesn’t give way to him. Eventually, he just drops it on his bed and drops his head into his hands with a heavy groan, frustrated. He isn’t even sure why he’s so determined to see what is in it other than Pogo insisting that whatever it is is important.

He slips the box underneath his bed, sets his bent hair clip aside, then falls back onto his bed. If it isn’t Reginald’s treasure chest of inheritance that he can take and move out of the country with it, then he’ll be disappointed.

Klaus slumps back against his bed, running his hands through h his hair.

The Academy is quiet, almost eerily so. His blood roars loudly in his ears in contrast as if trying to fill the silence echoing down the hall outside. He isn’t sure who, if anyone, decided to stay in the Academy for the night, other than Luther. He wonders where Five might be. What he might be doing.

His fingers drum on his thigh. He blinks. Time goes by too slowly, the world outside stays dark, and he never knows what to do with himself at times like this. Sleep evades him and he thinks that is for the better anyway; sleep is unpleasant, full of twisted nightmares and memories that he’d much rather avoid anyway. If he could have it his way, he’d never need sleep again. The hour or two he manages every other night is enough and too much.

He hasn’t slept in a few days, now that he thinks about it. He hadn’t slept the night he killed Reginald. Hadn’t slept the night before, and though there is a heaviness in his bones and a haze in his skull, he isn’t willing to lay down and run the risk of falling asleep.

Instead, he sits upright. He goes through his cigarettes until the plate that serves as an ashtray is virtually full and he notices that the next cigarette he reaches for is the last one in the packet. He blinks, clears his rough throat until it sends him coughing.

“Smoking kills, you know,” Ben mutters. Klaus stares at him, then takes another drag of his cigarette just to spite him. Ben rolls his eyes, turning to look out the window. He glances back. “I think you should talk to Diego,” he offers gently. Klaus’ brows furrow and Ben nods. “He was asking about you. I think it would be a good idea to reach out.” He pauses, pressing his lips together. “He might help you about, you know… Reginald, too.”

“I thought you weren’t happy about me doing that,” Klaus returns, tipping his head to the side slightly. Ben sighs, looking away and shrugging.

“I don’t know what to think, Klaus. I know why you did it. I understand. But the others might not unless you talk to them. Diego’s probably your best bet.” He pauses once more. “Maybe Five, too, but he’s acting weird. It might help.” He shrugs a little helplessly, folding his hands on his lap and finally turning back to look at Klaus.

“You think,” he says, slowly, eyebrows raised, “I should confess to murder to my brother who is an ex-cop?”

Ben snorts. “As if Diego would go to the police,” he says. Klaus gives him a sceptical look. “Just – think about it.”

“Pogo knows,” Klaus says. Ben sighs at that, nodding his head.

“I think so,” he murmurs. “But he’s not letting Luther know.”

Klaus frowns. He clasps his hands together on his lap. “I don’t know what he’s doing,” he mutters.

“Think he knows about what happened?”

Klaus grimaces. “I…” His hand flexes. He hadn’t thought about whether or not Pogo knew, but surely he must. Pogo was close with Reginald; Pogo helped with their education and their training when he could. He must have known what Reginald did to him. And he hadn’t helped. He hadn’t helped at all.

Klaus runs his hands down his face. Diego was more likely to support him – if anything, he’d probably go back and check for any traces and clean them up for Klaus. He doubts he’d actually be mad at him. And it looks as if Five wouldn’t care either, but he hasn’t seen Five in a long time; he has no idea how he’d react. Allison is out of the question, as is Luther, and Vanya’s unlikely to do anything in his favour either.

“I can’t just tell him,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Either of them.”

“You need help, Klaus.”

“There’s a chance none of them will find out.”

“Pogo knows.”

“And he isn’t telling anyone,” he snaps. “He won’t tell anyone.”

“He has the best chance of telling Luther,” says Ben. Klaus groans, running his hands through his hair and curling his fingers into it, tugging lightly.

“Why don’t you ever just shut up?” Klaus asks him, eyes narrowed. Ben gives him a look.

“I just think that’s the best thing you could do right now, Klaus,” he replies. He looks a little sad, a little worn, and Klaus can’t blame him. What good can Ben do when only Klaus can see and hear him?

Unless he could manifest him. The idea had crossed his mind multiple times since. He could make Ben corporeal. He could touch Ben and the others could see him, too, if he just got a hold of himself. No doubt Ben had thought about it countless times too. But he couldn’t.

“I think there are plenty other things I could do that are better for me. Heroin, for one,” he says, scratching his fingers over the crook of his elbows. Ben gives him a look.

“ _Klaus_.”

Klaus avoids looking at him in favour of looking at his own hands.

“He might be sleeping here tonight,” Ben says, “you could go check.”

“Everything is fine,” Klaus murmurs, voice soft and dismissive. He turns away from Ben, closing his eyes for a brief moment. “Everything is fine.” Shaking his head, Klaus peels his eyes open. His hands search out, grabbing his stuff animal nearby and digging his fingers into the holes cut into it. Plastic meets his touch and he yanks out the little plastic bag inside.

“I’m not one to encourage your bad habits, Klaus, but I feel like a drink would be more healthy than psychedelics at,” a pause, “one in the morning.”

Klaus rolls his eyes and adamantly ignores him. He reaches inside the bag, pulling out a slightly discoloured cigarette. He lights it up eagerly, smokes some of it, and when he feels everything get a little more distant, a little less real, he stubs it out. He’s not looking for a real high but rather something that can imitate sleep without letting him fall asleep, as if he can continue to convince himself he doesn’t feel exhausted.

If Ben says anything else, Klaus doesn’t hear him. He watches his room spin around him, almost nauseatingly, walls pulsing in time with his heart. He blinks and the clock on his wall tells him half an hour had passed. That is fine with him. It’s exactly the result he was looking for.

Morning rushes towards him in a handful of minutes, though time slows once more as his high begins to wear off, leaving him clumsy and a little all over the place, responding to Ben with irrelevant, nonsensical replies.

Eventually, he clambers out of his bed, steadying himself with a hand on his bedside table.

Ben follows him downstairs and into the living room. No one is nearby, the place still hauntingly quiet, and so Klaus falls onto the couch and stares at the unlit fireplace. He could leave again, if things get too bad. He’s survived the streets once before, he could do it again.

He hears footsteps behind him, slowing in the doorway, and he recognises them to be Luther’s. He doesn’t turn around or greet him; just continues to stare at the dim fireplace. Luther sighs, almost inaudibly, and turns to the kitchen.

He feels like he’s taunting Luther with his very presence. While everyone dismisses Luther’s suspicions of Reginald’s death, Klaus sits there, the murderer himself, and plays innocent. While Luther runs in circles trying to find proof of Reginald’s murder, Klaus sits and looks him in the eyes and tells him he’s wrong, and Pogo stands there, knowing the truth.

Klaus laughs a little at that. He hurries to slap a hand over his mouth, muffling the uncontrollable sound. Ben eyes him with a frown but says nothing, letting Klaus drift in his disorganised thoughts. Ultimately, he comes to the decision that he doesn’t want to stick around Luther and jinx his luck already, so he hurries back to his bedroom, closes his door, and finds his headphones.

Trying to focus on anything that isn’t the situation at hand, his progressing sobriety or the flashes of hands he sees every time he closes his eyes, he pulls out the box from underneath his bed, places it in his lap, and starts trying to pick the lock.

Just as he feels the lock start to give a little, there’s a flash that covers his vision in a brief layer of blue and Klaus flinches instinctively, dropping the box and throwing his hands up over his face.

“Klaus.”

He looks up to see Five standing there, lips pressed together, looking frustrated. Klaus lets out a small sigh, nails digging into the palm of his hands, but it takes him several prolonged moments before he drops his hands and lifts his head to look at him.

“What?”

Five eyes him and the box laying on his bed, his nose wrinkling ever so slightly at the smell of smoke that clings to every corner of his bedroom. “I need your help,” he says. Klaus’ brows furrow ever so slightly and he sits up.

“With what?” He asks, nose wrinkled slightly. “I’m, uh, in retirement at the moment. I’m going through grief.”

Five eyes him. “Why?”

“I just am. Diego’ll help you, or Luther will. Go find them.”

“Luther is chasing his own tail trying to find dad’s murderer and Diego isn’t here,” he states.

“Dad doesn’t have a murderer,” Klaus mutters defensively. Five quirks an eyebrow and Klaus sighs, gesturing half-heartedly at the door. “Can you just leave?”

There’s a glint in Five’s eyes; something a little frustrated, something a little sad. Klaus can’t place it.

“Vanya’s book didn’t say about anything happening to you,” he states.

“Vanya didn’t speak to us for a long time before she wrote that book,” Klaus states. “Nothing happened.”

“You used to be a better liar than that,” Five accuse. Klaus gives him a look.

“Just _leave_ , Five,” he stresses. “I’m busy.”

Five nods his head to the box on his bed. “Busy stealing Reginald’s stuff?”

“He doesn’t need it anymore,” scoffs Klaus. He reaches out, pulling the box onto his lap almost protectively.

“That can wait,” says Five, “this is more important.”

“Then go get someone else,” Klaus says between gritted teeth, pointing back at the door. Five does the opposite. He comes closer, right up to the edge of the bed where Klaus still sits. He scrutinises him with no subtleness, eyes narrowed, looking him up and down. Klaus simply tries his best to ignore him.

“Someone hurt you,” he states. Klaus stares at him, then, startled. “What happened?”

He had been trying not to think about it. “If I help you, will you leave me alone?”

Five presses his lips together. “Deal,” he says, voice level, and so Klaus heaves himself to his feet. At least a little tension falls out of Five’s shoulders and he takes a step back. “Have you got a suit?”

He thinks that he probably should have asked what Five needed help with before agreeing to anything.

###

He finds himself in a laboratory, watching Five trying, and failing, to intimidate a man into letting them see some patient’s records. Still, he isn’t entirely sure what the whole situation is about – something about a prosthetic eye that Five, for some unknown reason, needs to know the owner of. He just knows that Five is having a tough time getting that information while Klaus has been sitting there, trying to look intimidating in some kind of way while being half disassociated and progressively becoming more painfully sober with each passing minute. A ghost had materialised in the room, standing by the window, hands balled into fists by his side that shook with anger, muttering curses with a hoarse, rough throat. He is a murderer, he says, just like Klaus.

The man Five has been threatening for the past however long sighs heavily, leaning back in his chair and giving Klaus a desperate look. He sits up a little then, finally deigning to listen to the conversation happening around him. Something about the patient’s consent, which he feels like they’ve been arguing about for an hour now. Trying to come up with a plan, he looks around the room, at the desk and all the little trinkets and files on it. His lips purse.

Rising to his feet all of a sudden, Klaus places his hands upon the desk, leaning over it. “Well, what about _my_ consent? Threatening my son like you are,” his hand settles onto one of Five’s shoulder, “laying your hands on me.”

The brunette looks rightfully shocked and insulted, eyebrows raised. “Excuse me? I’ve been polite and respectful to you _and_ your son-“

Klaus’ hand leaves Five’s shoulder, swiping out and grabbing a snow globe imposing as a paper weight. He didn’t give it much hesitation before lifting it and smashing it against his head, fragile glass giving easily beneath the pressure. Glass, glitter and water rained down, soon followed by a slow stream of blood. He presses his hands up to the wound hidden beneath his hair, hissing between his clenched teeth, and then he drops his hands and can’t bring his gaze away from the blood on them.

There had been so much blood.

And isn’t it ironic? He has blood on his hands and now it isn’t just his own. The deceased murderer in the corner grins at him, and says he’ll _get used to it, it gets easier, it becomes fun._

Five nudges his foot. He looks up, forces a tense grin. “I don’t think security would like to see this sight, now, do you?” He asks. The man stands up, eyes wide in shock, and he takes a hesitant step around the table and sets a hand on Klaus’ shoulder.

“I think that you-“

Klaus reacts too quickly. There’s blood on him and it hurts and _they can touch him_ and the murderer won’t shut up. He pushes his hand off of him and then pushes him even further, against the window overlooking the multi-story drop to the pavement below, and he holds him at arms-length with trembling hands.

“I think you should just show us that report now, Grant,” he murmurs, voice hollow and words falling from an empty smile.

The man, whom he isn’t sure if he actually is named Grant, just looks at him with that same shocked expression and then he swallows, audibly, and nods his head.

Klaus’ hands fall quickly and he’s eager to step aside and let the man lead the way out of the room. Five lingers, staring at Klaus, before eventually turning and following the man. Klaus hesitates for longer, closing his eyes and trying to convince himself to do something right, to be normal. Then he exhales slowly, gives a pointed glare to the over-excited murderer in the room, shoves all thoughts out of his head and follows Five.

In the end, however, it didn’t help at all. The eye hadn’t even been made yet, much to Five’s despair, and they walked back outside with empty hands.

Five sits down on one of the stairs outside, elbows on his knees and looking ahead of himself, face impassive and unreadable.

Klaus sits down next to him, hesitating a moment and trying to find something to say to him to try and ease the evident stress he’s going through, but eventually he comes upon nothing and so he just sits there.

“That was my only lead,” Five mutters eventually.

“Sorry.”

Five eyes him. “Someone, somewhere out there is going to lose an eye in the next seven days and bring about the end of life on Earth as we know it. It’s important.”

Klaus blinks, turning to look and stare at him. “He’ll have to come here some time, then,” he simply says with a disinterested shrug. He can’t find the space in his mind to care about it or really process what he just said, either.

Five continues to eye him, lips pressed together in thought. “Didn’t expect you to lash out at the guy.”

Klaus shrugs. “It worked.”

“I didn’t think you were like that.”

Klaus shrugs. “I’m not,” he says, finally looking back at him. Five raises an eyebrow, then he looks away, feigning nonchalance.

“I tried for years to get back here, you know?” He says. “I was in the future for decades. I didn’t come back just to lose or fail my siblings in another way.”

Klaus’ eyes narrow slightly at that. Five doesn’t look back at him.

“You haven’t failed any of us,” he says, deciding to ignore whatever his thoughts on Ben might be.

Five’s eyes slide back to him, unreadable and cold as ever. Klaus wonders, briefly, what happened to him in the future that he isn’t saying, and then he decides he probably doesn’t want to know.

They’re quiet for a long while, moments stretching out, heavy and tense. Klaus feels as if Five is trying to get under his skin and read his thoughts and he tries to keep them evenly empty.

“I’d like to hope that I won’t,” Five says, his tone something akin to gentle. Klaus wants to stand up and walk away; head back to the Academy or, ideally, a familiar alleyway that he could lose himself in. He looks back down at the blood staining the creases of his skin.

“I killed Reginald,” he says. It comes out slowly, quietly, words falling flat and almost quickly stolen from his lips by the wind. He doesn’t dare look up. He isn’t sure why he’s saying it either, why now, why to Five. Ben doesn’t say anything.

Five eyes him silently for a moment. Klaus looks back up at him, a little hesitant, and then he says it again. “I killed dad. I did it. I went into his bedroom when everyone was asleep and I killed him and then I left.” He finishes his sentence with a laugh, that same uncontrollable laugh that keeps bubbling over all of the feelings flooding up in him, and he covers his mouth with one of his hands as if that might take it back.

Five continues to stay silent, watching him with eyes like a hawk’s. Then he nods. “I might just have done it myself if I came any earlier,” he says. “I don’t doubt he deserved it.” He looks away then, pursing his lips before speaking up again. “Did you leave any traces? Luther would have found them by now.”

Klaus shakes his head quickly, a little hysterically. “No,” he says, “no, no, no. I didn’t. I – it was with a pillow. I killed him.”

Five’s eyes are on him again, curious almost. Then he stands up and offers Klaus a hand, which he takes. “If Luther finds out,” he says and then pauses. “I’ll be there.”

Klaus looks at him. He holds his gaze heavily, cool like steel, chilling in his bones, and he simply nods. He isn’t sure if he feels any better, but Five, if anything, only seems angry at what Klaus isn’t saying, what he’s sure Reginald must have done to cause it.

Klaus stands up, swallows down his emotions and follows Five away from the laboratory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Five knows, and maybe more to come soon wink wink. I hope you enjoyed this part, feel free to let me know what you thought in the comments!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has been revived, hello again

“I’m going to stick around the lab,” says Five, leaning against his van, hands stuffed into his pocket. “Can you get home yourself?”

Klaus nods his head, eyes bouncing down the street. “Of course,” he utters. “I’ll see you around, I guess.” He takes a few steps away, already heading back down the street, but Five speaks out again.

“Klaus.”

“Yeah?”

Five pauses, looking pensive, and then he sighs. “Try and stay low around Luther.”

Klaus hesitates, lingering, and then he nods. “Thank you,” he mumbles, and then he turns back around and walks down the street. As he goes, he tugs out his packet of cigarettes and a lighter only to realise that he has one left in the packet. He frowns at the sight, pulls it out, and when he balances it between his teeth he chucks the box into a trash can as he goes.

“You ever consider, you know, rationing your cigarettes?”

Ben materialises beside him and Klaus huffs, shielding the cigarette from the wind with one of his trembling hands as he lights it. He inhales deeply until bitterness slides sweet down his throat and unfurls in his lungs.

“We’ll just go get more, then,” he mutters. “Beautiful day. Might as well stick around outside.”

Ben hums his response and they keep walking down the street, smoke trailing after Klaus with each puff. He taps ash from the cigarette periodically, then he crosses the street, going to one of the cheap corner stores, finishes the cigarette outside and crushes it beneath the toe of his foot, and then he heads inside.

He has enough money to buy another packet on him. He is already tugging another one out as he steps outside, lighting it up with ease.

“Your teeth are going to rot.”

Klaus rolls his eyes at Ben, blowing smoke in his brother’s direction, and then turns on his heels. He decides to take the long way back to the Academy to delay the possibility of seeing Luther. His feet take him down the street and into a nearby park, following the thin path through, dodging people out jogging that give him odd looks; he doesn’t blame him, there is still blood and glitter in his hair and on his face and his hands, and he is still in Reginald’s suit.

He killed him not long ago and now he’s parading his suit around the place. It is unsettling and hilarious.

There is a dog that runs past him. He hears children laughing as they chase one another. Couples talking and birds flying from tree to tree, hopping up branches.

Everything feels surreal. He feels as if he is a ghost; that he shouldn’t be here, walking through this park, passing by families and normal people. He is dangerous, isn’t he?

How are these people around him so oblivious?

They are going about their lives with no knowledge of what lurks around every corner, in the shadows. They have no idea of the bad and the evil in the world, and they have no idea that Klaus is part of that, and he is right there. How does he not reek of death? There are ghosts watching him from every angle, ghosts following him, ghosts crying, sobbing, screaming, laughing, urging him on.

The ghosts have never acted like this. Following the murder, their energy changed. He supposes, though, that if they cannot kill him, they can get Klaus to kill others. Why ghosts long to see a life be snuffed out, Klaus isn’t sure, but now ghosts are excited. They know what he did, even if he’s never seen them before, and they want him to do it again. The quieter ghosts who would only ever whimper and sob now look at him fearfully.

He can almost feel their energy seep into him.

It scares him.

It excites him.

It had been surprisingly easy to kill Reginald. He had not fought back, had not thrashed, hadn’t done anything. Hadn’t even looked surprised.

He is shrouded in death and everyone is so foolishly oblivious to it.

Klaus steps out of the park, shoulders slumping. Marching around with an entourage of corpses while children play nearby feels wrong.

He continues down the street. He pushes his hair back from his face; stains his cigarette with blood when he picks it from his lips to tap ash from it. It tastes metallic when he puts it back in his mouth.

His eyes are stuck on his shoes. Somebody walks into him.

Both he and the other man stumble and Klaus looks up, an automatic apology on his lips only for his eyes to narrow at the other person.

The brunette looks up, offers a sheepish smile. “Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t see you there.”

“Are you following me?” Klaus accuses bluntly. The man, the same man from the dumpster, stares at him. Blinks. Klaus sighs, forces himself to relax. “Look, the Academy hasn’t been a thing for ages, I don’t do autographs; it’s useless these days.”

“I know,” says the man, shaking his head. “I know that; I just wanted to talk to you.”

Klaus scrutinises the man. He looks normal; average, an ordinary guy that wouldn’t stand out anywhere if Klaus couldn’t see the mangled corpse behind him, head caved in, spitting out expletives towards the man.

He shares a look with Ben, eyebrows raised slightly.

“What about?” He asks. The man shrugs.

“I just want to talk to you,” he says, offering a fake smile.

Klaus huffs out smoke. “No,” he says, turns around and steps away. The man follows him.

“Come on, give me a chance,” he says, then lowers his voice. “I think you could do with someone to talk to.”

Klaus’ eyes narrow. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” He retorts, stepping back.

_He knows, he knows, he knows._

The man offers a thin smile. “I’m offering you someone to speak to who won’t judge you.” His hand dips briefly into his pocket then he holds it out as if wanting to shake his hand. Without thinking about it, Klaus hesitantly reaches his hand out to shake his. As he does so, the man slips something into his hand.

“Leonard,” he introduces. Klaus looks at the card in his hand; it has a phone number and the address of a woodworks shop. Then, in pen on the back, a home address that has been hastily added on.

Klaus blinks up at Leonard. Despite the obvious red flags, he puts the card in his pocket. Leonard’s smile widens.

“How about I help you clean up?” He offers. “That looks like a nasty cut.”

Klaus taps his cigarette, letting ash flutter down to the ground. Curiosity and anxiety towards Luther gets the best of him and he nods.

###

The man has a nice home. He keeps up pleasant chatter as they go, as if he hadn’t been raiding the dumpster at an ungodly time in the night, even if it is hard for Klaus to hear everything he says due to the ghost following him continuing to howl.

He sets Klaus down in the kitchen, gets a cloth and then cleans the blood from his skin, gentle fingers parting his hair to search for the cut.

“Well, you’re lucky; it’s not too deep, it should heal on its own,” he comments. Klaus grunts, eyes tracking him.

“What is it you really want to talk about?” He asks, fed up with feeling so on edge as Leonard dances around whatever it is he really wants to talk about. He pauses, staring at Klaus for a few moments, and then he comes close.

“Did you that he wrote it all down?” He asks. Klaus’ eyebrows furrow.

“What?”

“Reginald Hargreeves. Your father,” clarifies Leonard. “Did you know he wrote everything about you down?”

“What are you talking about?”

Leonard remains standing. Klaus’ stomach churns.

“He wrote every bit of information on you. Every experiment, every result or lack of one. He wrote how he made you talk to ghosts in a cemetery when you were five and you were cold and scared. He wrote about how he kept you up until three in the morning and was disappointed when you were tired in the morning. How he was disappointed in your self-defence and sparring.”

Klaus’ mouth feels dry as Leonard continues to speak, his voice low. His heart pounds furiously against his ribs, like fists against a door, and he can’t breathe properly.

“He wrote,” says Leonard, one hand on the table as he leans close. “About the first time he locked you in a crypt and how you screamed for him and how he was disappointed. He wrote about the last time he locked you in there, and how he didn’t help you because he expected you to learn through pain to control your powers on manifesting ghosts until there was nothing left for the ghosts to break anymore-“

The chair clatters to the ground as Klaus stands up abruptly. His fists ball in Leonard’s shirt and he pushes forwards until Leonard’s back slams against the wall.

Whoever he killed roars excitedly at this action.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but no one – no one is supposed to know about that.

And had he really written that down? How disappointed he was, watching Klaus be torn into by corpses?

Leonard’s hands rest over Klaus’ wrists, relaxed.

“I know what you’re feeling, Klaus,” he says, watching Klaus’ wide eyes and gritting teeth, his rapidly rising and falling chest. “I understand what you’re feeling and what you’re thinking. You were scared and hurt and all you ever wanted was love from the person in your life who was supposed to give you that unconditionally-“

“Shut up!” Klaus hisses, pressing his fists against his chest. Leonard doesn’t even flinch.

“And all he did was hurt you, and belittle you, and pin your own family against you-“

“Stop!”

“For years he did this, and he took it too far and you did what you had to do, Klaus. You couldn’t handle the pain anymore-“

“Stop it! Stop!” Klaus cries out, and his cheeks feel wet, his voice wobbles. He thinks Ben might be telling him something, but he can’t hear over the thundering sound of his own blood rushing in his ears.

“You didn’t deserve any of what he did to you, any of what your family did to you,” Leonard says, voice soft, squeezing his wrist reassuringly. “And I understand that, Klaus. Let me help you when no one else ever has and ever will.”

Klaus sobs.

He feels so conflicted, his emotions muddled, a mix of fear and anger and bitterness. He is scared of what he did, horrified by himself. He is terrified of the ghosts. Resentment towards his father and his siblings bubble in his chest. He is hurt, and he is scared, and he is angry, and all he has ever wanted is his family’s love and help, and he has never got it.

His vicious hold on Leonard wavers and the brunette reaches his arms around Klaus, pulling him into a hug; tight, crushing.

Klaus can’t find it in himself to even care about whatever this man’s motives truly are. In this moment, he is reassuring, and Klaus has never wanted reassurance more in his life and so he allows himself to have it.

###

“I wasn’t – I wasn’t thinking,” Klaus says, looking at his hands. Leonard hums, sitting opposite him.

“Of course not, you were overwhelmed. You knew what you had to do to protect yourself and you did it,” replies the man.

“I didn’t want to kill him.”

Leonard blinks. “If you didn’t want to kill him, you wouldn’t have. It isn’t a bad thing, Klaus.”

It is Klaus’ turn to blink incredulously at him. “Of course it is a bad thing,” he retorts. “It’s murder. Just because you don’t think so doesn’t mean it isn’t.”

Leonard hums, nonchalant. “You shouldn’t feel bad, Klaus,” he says, resting his elbows on the table.

“I murdered someone.”

“If he was willing to watch you be torn apart, Klaus, it was only a matter of time before he killed you himself. Do you think he ever felt bad for what he did to you? For the mausoleum?” He ignores the way Klaus flinches. “For what he did when you were four, or when you were eight, or thirteen, or even twenty-nine? There is proof that he didn’t.”

Klaus grimaces at that, staring down at his hands. His eyes burn.

He hates Reginald. Of course he does. Despite this, there is still part of him that only ever wanted to make him proud, to hear a compliment fall from his lips, to be loved. That part would remain no matter how much Klaus accepted the fact that this was ludicrous to hope for.

“And your siblings. They watched you struggle to stay awake, and they watched you turn to drugs at thirteen years old, knew you had drank as young as ten years old, and what did they do? They called you disgusting. They didn’t even consider there might be a reason you were doing that. They didn’t care about you sleeping in streets, and struggling through winters to survive. They didn’t care about whether or not you were getting a meal every night, if you were ill, if the people you were hanging out with were kind. You must be so tired.”

Klaus stares stubbornly at his hands, body trembling faintly as he struggles to supress his emotions.

“You’ve been through so much. You ought to understand that things aren’t fair and that it’s only right that you retaliate, now. No one ever cared about you even when you were suffering right in front of them. Don’t feel sorry for being pushed too far.”

Klaus inhales shakily, blinking up at Leonard who is staring at him with an intense expression.

“You understand?” The man urges, raising his eyebrows.

Klaus knows he is right. It isn’t fair. Klaus had his first drink of vodka at ten years old and his first taste of drugs at thirteen, and his siblings didn’t see that as a way of coping with a problem, but rather him being selfish and throwing his life away. How many times had he been half-asleep in the slightly sheltered entrance to a shop at night with only the clothes on his back, and he had seen Diego or Allison or Vanya walk past and look at him and say nothing? How many times had he seen his siblings and be littered in new bruises, his eyes still rimmed red and haunted, his smile so obviously fake, and for them not to care?

It isn’t _fair_. None of it is fair. He is so tired. Tired of hurting, tired of being brushed off, tired of being so obviously not okay and for the people who are supposed to love him to find him disgusting.

“Do you understand, Klaus?”

Exhaling slowly, Klaus nods his head.

###

He is reluctant to leave, but he also doesn’t want to wear Reginald’s suit any longer and he is tired. Plus, the fear of going back and being confronted by Luther has abated, given way to anger. Of course he killed Dad. If he hadn’t, how much longer would it have been before Reginald killed him? Would his siblings even care then? Probably not. Reginald would have put his death down as a back-alley overdose.

So he returns to the Academy almost wanting to be confronted, so he can yell, and scream, and shove. He wants to throw things, wants to push over trophy cabinets, wants to get in his siblings faces and call out every damn thing they have ever done to him.

“Are you sure you want to go back there?” Leonard had asked him. Klaus shrugged.

“I don’t know, but I’m – I’m better,” he murmured. Leonard had smiled at him, thin and sly like fox, and he squeezed Klaus’ arm.

“Come back soon,” he said. “Whenever you want. I’ll be here for you when they aren’t.”

It feels nice; having someone understand his pain, understand where he is coming from. Of course he has Ben – though Ben had gone when Leonard began cleaning his forehead and he hadn’t returned yet – but Ben doesn’t understand. Ben was never on the receiving end of looks of disgust and disappointment; Ben never had corpses telling him to hurt himself and his family since he learned how to talk; never knew the taste of hard liquor from a young age. Ben knows what peace, as brief as it may be, is like. Klaus has never known peace.

These thoughts make that familiar bitterness bubble forth, hot in his veins, and it simmers in him the whole walk back to the Academy.

He uses the fire escape in the alleyway to get into his bedroom. His door is still closed, untouched, and there is no commotion going on.

Klaus drops onto his bed, pulls out his cigarettes, and lights one.

Ben chooses this moment to reappear. He says nothing, just nods in acknowledgement of Klaus and then leans against the window, peering out.

“Are you feeling any better?” He asks, watching Klaus fumble to get out of Reginald’s suit and into his own clothes. He throws the suit outside of the window and hears it land in the dumpster.

He isn’t angry at Ben. Ben and Five; they are fine. Five has not been here to belittle and bully him, and Ben has been on his side, mostly, except for when he sees Klaus throw away his life while he himself is dead. Klaus can let that slide. He would be dead a hundred times over if not for Ben.

“Tired,” he says with a shrug, pulling his knees up to his chest and leaning against the wall next to his bed. He takes the cigarette from his lips, out stretches his arm to reach the ash-covered plate on his dresser, and adds to the growing pile. He brings the cigarette back, inhaling deeply.

“You didn’t get any sleep last night,” Ben murmurs.

“I know,” sighs Klaus. And he doubts he will tonight, either.

Holding his cigarette between his lips, Klaus tries to busy himself with something, tries to avoid spiralling into dark thoughts or falling asleep and being subjected to the torture of his own memories and nightmares. Instead, he finds the box he had left when Five had come to him for help; picks up his bobby pin beside it on the floor, and then begins to try and fiddle with the lock.

“Wonder what’s actually in there,” Ben comments. Klaus shrugs, jaw tense, but careful not to crush his cigarette between his lips.

The lock is surprisingly strong. It only spurs him on rather than dissuading him from trying to open; what the hell is so important that Reginald hid it beneath a false panel, in a locked box? Klaus is nothing if not stubborn.

So he continues to pry at it.

Until, finally, he hears a click. The top slides loose.

Klaus flips the lid off, drops his bobby pin, and looks inside; even Ben peers closer, curious.

Inside is a simple red book with Reginald’s initials on the front. Klaus raises an eyebrow, lifting it out of the box and sharing a look with Ben. He weighs the book between his hands.

“That it?” He asks, thoroughly disappointed. He shifts his grip on it, as if getting ready to throw it out the window.

“Well, at least read what’s in it,” Ben says before he can throw it. “It must be important.”

_He wrote everything down, you know_ ; Leonard’s words echo in his skull.

Klaus toys with his lower lip. He huffs a breath, stubs out his cigarette, and opens the book.

_Number Seven,_ it says. _The White Violin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops
> 
> This isn't Leonard/Klaus, Leonard is just a manipulative piece of shit
> 
> Anywho, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!! I've got a better idea of where I want to go with this fic so I should be updating it more again <3


	6. Chapter 6

Klaus blinks.

Every page he turns tells him the same thing.

Number Seven, originally dubbed the _White Violin_ , soon to be known as his sister Vanya. Number Seven, who has powers. Whose powers are incredible and destructive and dangerous. Number Seven, who can convert sound into energy and manipulate it.

He flicks through the pages, faster and faster.

_Explosive..._

_Uncontrollable..._

_Geokinesis..._

_Powerful..._

_Violent..._

_Destructive..._

_Great potential..._

Page after page, training gone wrong, destruction brought about, powers too dangerous and fragile to be looked into and mastered. She hurt Luther when they were three when he got too close to her, once, and despite Luther's endurance and strength, even then, he had been in the infirmary. She hurt Reginald. She hadn't batted an eye. 

Danger, power, destruction. Enough so that even Reginald took it upon himself to decide that such powers were too dangerous to be allowed. Too dangerous to even train. 

A soundproof room. Number Three's rumours. Specifically made medication to suppress her powers.

"Holy shit," Klaus says. The book finishes with the final report that Vanya and everyone else is none the wiser and that her powers are controlled. 

He turns to the front. 

_Number Seven's abilities._

He reads it over and over again. Swallows.

"Ben," he says, voice low, and Ben looks just as shocked. "This has to be a joke. Right?"

"I... Reginald wouldn't make that up. Pogo was looking for this for a reason," he says, and they hold one another's gaze. Ben's eyes are wide. 

"I can't let him know I've read this," he says, and Ben shakes his head in agreement.

"Don't," he says. Klaus stands up, gripping the book tightly, and then he picks up the box it was in and throws it out the window, hears it fall into the dumpster. He looks down at the book in his trembling hands.

"This can't be real," he utters. 

"Reginald wouldn't make it up," repeats Ben. "There - he mentioned a room, right? A basement? If it's there..."

Klaus nods. He tucks the book to his chest and then looks at his door. Then he lifts his mattress slightly and tucks the book beneath it.

He feels as if he is moving in slow motion. His heart is loud; echoing like a clap of thunder. He opens his door and creeps out, hesitant, looking around. The corridor is empty. His feet take him silently down the stairs, and he lingers at the bottom of them. 

Even the ghosts are silent; following like a shadow, holding their breath.

"Where?" He whispers to Ben, and his brother looks around.

They wander slowly, deciding to go deeper into the house in rarely visited areas; through old corridors Klaus has only the faintest memory of ever being in.

They go right to the back. They find the stairs in the left corner. The door is old, obviously untouched for years. Since the last time Reginald locked Vanya in. The thought makes him nauseous; makes him furious. He has to use a bobby pin in his pocket to unlock it; he does so with ease, as if his body knows exactly how to do this. Or maybe it is because a nanny with a broken neck that he doesn't remember guides his hands.

He fumbles to find a light switch at the top of the stairs before descending them, lower and lower and lower into the ground, further from everything. The lights buzz, threaten to give him a headache. The stairs open up to a corridor, and at the end of the corridor; what he can only describe as a cage. Thick, dark, heavy, as if built to hold in a monster. His knees feel weak as he approaches it, as he gazes inside it. 

A soundproof room, the book had said. To suppress Vanya's powers until he began to drug her. 

Klaus puts his hand on the door and looks through the window at the crackling lights like electricity inside.

Reginald used to lock Vanya in there. This is real. This is real.

"Klaus, breathe-"

Ben's voice finally filters to his ears and he gasps, then gasps and splutters again. He stumbles back and hits the wall of the corridor, unable to draw his eyes away from the cage as he struggles to breathe against rising panic. It is too familiar, too similar to his own experience, and he thinks he might throw up or pass out.

“Come on, Klaus, let’s go,” says Ben, trying to coax him down the corridor. Klaus allows him to; he stumbles back, turns away from the cage, and hurries up the stairs. Each step further from the cage loosens his ribs a little more and makes it easier for him to breathe.

He slams the door shut behind him and leans against it, head resting back against it and he exhales slowly, shakily.

“What the fuck,” Klaus mutters, “what the fuck, what the fuck, Ben, what the fuck was wrong with him?”

“I don’t know,” Ben mutters, eying the door, “we need to tell her, right? You need to talk to Vanya.”

Klaus looks down at his hands. “I – yeah. Yeah, of course,” he mutters. “Right?”

“Right.”

Klaus sucks in a breath, runs his hands through his hair. “What the fuck,” he mutters. “He was crazy. He – he locked her in a cage, Ben. He drugged her. What-“

“I know,” Ben says.

Pogo must know, too. Pogo was mentioned a few times. Pogo just sat by Reginald and watched it all happened. Watched Reginald lock up a four year old in a cage.

He feels sick. He scrubs a hand down his face, exhaling and trying to steel himself. He spends a few more moments just trying to brace himself, trying to process his thoughts. He feels sick and shaky, horrified, furious.

He makes his way through the winding corridors of the Academy, looking around as if paranoid but the only people that are following him are already dead.

Vanya killed some of them, he thinks. It was in the book. The nannies; she killed them at four years old.

“Klaus-“

He startles, jumping and looking to the side, flinching away. Luther stares at him, raising his eyebrows. “We’re having a family meeting,” he says, “just now, come on - it's important.”

Klaus raises his eyebrows, sharing a look with Ben. It might be a chance to see Vanya, he thinks. Swallowing down the mix of emotions rising in his chest, he follows Luther into the living room. Everyone else is there; Pogo and Vanya included.

Klaus can’t take his eyes off Vanya.

“What’s this all about, Luther?” Diego asks, arms folded over his chest. Klaus leans anxiously against a pillar, trembling fingers reaching for a cigarette and lighting it, trying to distract himself. Vanya is right there. She thinks she is normal. Pogo knows otherwise.

“Allison found video footage from the night Dad died,” Luther announces, gesturing to the television that has been set up on the bar. Klaus’ blood runs cold.

“What?” He asks, word muffled by his cigarette.

“Video footage from the camera in his bedroom,” Luther repeats. “Just watch.”

Klaus shares a wide-eyed look with Ben, watching Luther lean forwards to press play and start the footage. His blood roars in his ears and he struggles to breathe, throat hot with smoke. Why is Luther dragging this out? Why hurt him even more?

“See,” says Luther. He sounds as if he is underwater. “The video is corrupted here for half an hour. After that, he’s dead.”

“What?” Klaus breathes, blinking and struggling through the ringing in his ears. He stumbles forwards, watches as Luther puts the tape back to the beginning. Sure enough, the tape begins to flicker and then goes static, and when it returns it shows half an hour has passed. It hides Klaus.

“So what? The cameras are old, Luther. You’re about as paranoid as the old man was.”

Luther taps the screen. “Look closer.” He rewinds it and they peer close. The door is closed. The tape corrupts. The door is ajar. “Someone went in, killed him and left.”

Diego is quiet.

Klaus laughs.

Luther glares at him and Klaus slaps his hand over his mouth, then laughs again, though muffled.

He looks at Pogo, eyes crinkling. Pogo stares back at him with a frown before looking away.

“What’s so funny, Klaus?” Luther asks. “Someone snuck in and murdered Dad in his sleep, and there’s _proof_.”

Klaus shakes his head. His eyes burn. He waves his hand, struggles to catch his breath and then takes a drag of his cigarette. “Nothing,” he wheezes. “Nothing.”

“You good, bro?” Diego asks.

Klaus claps his hands together, digs his nails into his skin until it stings. “Dad was murdered,” he says, staring at the screen, and shrugs. “Nothing. It’s just funny.”

“Klaus,” Luther says, looking a little hurt. “This isn’t _funny_.”

“It is!” Klaus exclaims, wide grin wobbling dangerously. He stumbles backwards, gaze whipping wildly between his siblings. “God, you’re all so _stupid_! You know nothing about Dad! It’s fucking funny!” Klaus barks out a sharp laugh, staggering away from them all, towards his ghosts crowding around him, encouraging him, yelling him, feeding him their anger and bitterness. Klaus can’t tell where he ends and the ghosts begin.

Vanya has powers. Vanya killed nannies without so much as batting an eye. Dad locked her up and drugged her. Klaus killed Dad.

“Bro,” says Diego, softly, trying to calm him down. Klaus ignores him.

“You think you know everything about this family,” Klaus snickers, looking away briefly. “There is so much more to this! There are things none of you know!”

“Klaus,” murmurs Ben, warning, but his voice is drowned out by the other ghosts and the roaring in Klaus’ ears and the confusion on his siblings’ idiotic faces.

“Hey, Vanya,” Klaus says, head snapping towards her. “How long has dearest Daddy been drugging you for?”

Vanya startles, eyebrows furrowing. “Klaus – what?”

“Master Klaus,” interjects Pogo, voice firm, eyes widening a fraction in realisation. Klaus turns to him with a grin, furiously nodding his head to confirm his suspicions.

“Oh, yeah,” he says, bitterness seeping into his hysterical tone. “I know. And so do you.” His face screws up, become angry and disgusted, and he crushes his cigarette as he curls his hands into fists. “Don’t think you’re any better than the old bastard,” he hisses. “You are even worse; you sat and watched everything he did!”

“Master-“

“You watched him do it! When Five disappeared, did you think that was only the beginning? When Ben died-“

“ _Klaus_!”

“Did you wonder who would be next? Are you surprised that he’s the only one dead? It’s surprising, isn’t it?”

“Klaus, calm down,” Luther says, voice low, and Klaus laughs.

“You could have stopped this, Pogo, you could have stopped everything he did and instead you let him! You _let_ him!” His voice turns ragged with his yell, hurt and painful, one of his hands coming up to rest on his heaving chest.

Diego comes close, hands up and eyebrows raised. “Bro, you need to calm down, come on,” he utters, hands coming up onto Klaus’ shoulders. Klaus shoves his hands away, stepping back as if afraid of him, but his eyes only leave Pogo’s sad face for a brief moment before returning.

“I don’t regret what I did,” he blurts. “I’d do it again. I don’t need you to protect me, either, because you never have when I needed you – did you watch the tape with him?”

“Klaus, come on.” Diego keeps stepping forwards, forcing Klaus to step back, inching out of the living room. Klaus doesn’t notice.

“Did you watch? How many times? Did he make you zoom in on parts and sigh when I didn’t get back up? Did you agree with him? Tell me!”

“Klaus-“

“Does he have a cage for every one of us? Or just me and-“

“Klaus,” says Diego again, grabbing him by the shoulders and spinning him around. He wraps an arm around his shoulders, forces him away from the living room. Klaus blinks and he’s in the bedroom hallway upstairs, chest heaving with staggered breaths. “Want to tell me what that was all about?” Diego asks, ducking his head to catch his eyes.

Klaus laughs, and finally unfurls his fists to drop the crushed remains of his cigarette. His hand stings slightly from where the lit tip had burned his skin, but he hardly feels it. Wild eyes turn to Diego.

“Dad was a monster,” he sneered. “You don’t even know the half of it. And Pogo just sat there and watched and let it all happen.”

Diego sighs, shoulders slumping. “I know you hated Dad,” he says, “he was a fucking bastard, but seriously, what’s gotten into you lately?”

“What’s gotten into me?” Klaus snorts, shaking his head. “Dad was murdered! Pogo’s covering for me and yet he would rather sit and watch everything Dad did than help,” he hisses.

Diego raises his eyebrows, eyes bouncing towards the stairs, and then he takes hold of his shoulders and tugs him into the nearest bathroom, closing the door.

“Bro, what do you mean that Pogo’s covering for you?” He asks, voice lowered. Klaus pauses, freezes. Did he really say that? He can’t remember half of what has been tumbling out of his mouth. He supposes it doesn’t matter now.

His lips spread in a smile and he looks away, shoulders dropping, and he laughs slightly. His hands twitch by his side and he shakes his head, smiles bitterly. “Remember the time that you broke the camera in the gym hall when we were eleven?” He asks, and Diego nods. “And it was fixed within an hour. Dad would never have let a single camera malfunction, let alone the one in his bedroom.”

Diego stares at him for a few seconds, then he rolls his eyes and shakes his head, snorting. “If you try and joke with Luther like this, he’s going to end up throwing you across the hall,” Diego says. Klaus quirks an eyebrow.

“What am I joking about?”

Diego gives him a look. “You’re trying to tell me that you killed Dad and Pogo messed up the tape from the camera to cover for you,” he says. Klaus’ eyes bounce to the side, land briefly on the mirror, and he catches a brief glance of his reflection. Wide eyed, frenzied-looking, with a shadow of corpses following behind him.

He wonders if Reginald will ever show up.

He wonders what would happen if Reginald showed up and Klaus made him corporeal.

He watches his lips smile in the mirror as he laughs. Finally, he turns to look once more at Diego, nodding his head. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s because I did.”

Diego blinks, snorts dismissively. “I wish-“

“No,” says Klaus, interrupting him. He lifts his hands, inches them forwards, then pauses and stares at them as if he didn’t realise he had brought them up. He settles them on Diego’s chest, tipping his head down slightly. “I did. I did do it, Diego.” His chest bounces with another laugh and his eyes bounce to the mirror, eying the corpses behind him.

They are close. Too close for him to be comfortable, but he doesn’t feel as jumpy as he ought to. Aside from the wheezing of their breath, the way their bones crack as they shift, the quiet sniffling. They press close, as if waiting to see what will happen.

“He’ll tell,” one mutters, looking around anxiously. “He’ll tell, he’ll tell, he’ll tell. You have to get rid of him, too.”

Nods of agreement. Murmurs of; “he’ll tell, get rid of him, use the razor on the sink, or us, we can do it, let us do it, it’s not fair-“

Klaus twitches, turns back to Diego who is staring at him with a schooled expression. He shifts on his feet, tips his head to the side and pats his brother’s chest, nodding again as if to encourage Diego to believe him. “I killed Dad. His door was unlocked, and I suffocated him with his pillow. Forgot to close the door on the way out. He didn’t fight. Didn’t do anything. Just – died. Then I went to sleep and looked Luther in the eye and told him he was crazy for thinking Dad was murdered.”

Diego blinks, something in his face shifting. His lips move silently over uncertain words and he eyes the door over Klaus’ shoulder, then looks back to him. “Klaus, you didn’t,” he says finally. Klaus nods.

“I did. I told Five. And now I’m telling you! I’m just waiting for Luther to find out and put my head through the wall, and you know what? I’ll let him, because I don’t regret it – I don’t. I’d do it again.” His smile wavers, humoured eyes turning cold, haunted, and he curls his hands onto fists, still resting against Diego’s chest. “I’d do it again. He was a monster. He – god, you don’t know, you don’t _know_ -“

He cuts himself off, thumps one hand down gently one Diego’s chest like a sympathetic pat, and then he brings his hands back to himself, flexing them, looking up at the ceiling.

“What – what don’t I know, Klaus? You can’t be serious-“

“So much,” Klaus murmurs, and it seems as if all the energy has been sucked out of him. He closes his eyes. The mausoleum, the murder, Vanya, the ghosts. So much.

Diego stares at him, expression conflicted. Klaus isn’t sure what he expected, really. His siblings have never cared about him, why should they start now?

Klaus turns around, reaching for the door handle.

Diego grabs his shoulder. “Klaus – why? Why did you do it?” He asks, lips parted in shock.

Klaus blinks, staring at his hand. “He… just kept _pushing_.”

Diego is quiet. His hand falls off his shoulder, limp by his side, and Klaus twists the door handle and slips outside, leaving Diego in favour of sitting in his bedroom filled with corpses.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you thought you'd seen the last of me

“Are you going to go find Vanya?”

Klaus’ eyes bounce up to Ben. “Is she still here?” He asks with a quiet voice. Ben shrugs, looking away.

“Don’t know - hence why you should go find her. We need to tell her, Klaus.”

His foot stamps out the cigarette he was smoking, freeing up his hands to cover his face. “I know, I know, I know.” God, he knows. He can’t just keep this a secret for much longer, but he doesn’t even know how he is supposed to approach such a thing. He’d have to bring that book with him, of course, or she’ll never believe him, and probably even less so after the breakdown he just had in front of everyone. He isn’t sure how he can approach any of them after that, actually. 

Plus, Pogo knew that he knew about Vanya now. He can’t imagine that that will do him any good, and he’s half surprised that he hasn’t come to talk to him, or gaslight him into silence, or something. He still isn’t entirely sure why he corrupted that footage of him killing Reginald, but a part of him thinks that revealing his knowledge of Vanya’s powers has just ruined any more chances of him doing that again. 

He needs to find Vanya, then. Tell her. Find her, show her the book. Then tell the others. Hope that in the meantime Pogo has not told Luther about the truth of Reginald’s death and that his presence in the Academy won’t be met with a fist. He can’t imagine Luther killing him - well, at least not on purpose - but he can’t imagine Pogo wanting him sitting in a regular jail, where Klaus would have nothing else to lose aside from even more dirty secrets about Reginald, worse than the ones in Vanya’s book.  _ Oh _ , he thinks, a little laugh tumbling from his lips. Perhaps they’ll put Vanya’s little prison cell in the basement to good use again. 

He needs to find Vanya, then. That would be the good thing to do. The right thing to do. Bracing himself to go back inside, he sighs, exhales slowly, and stands up. Part of him hopes that Vanya has left now, so that he can leave the Academy too. Luckily for him, it seems to be the case; he can’t find her at all inside, and nor can Ben, so she must have taken her leave whilst he was talking to Diego. 

He hurries upstairs, hands slipping beneath his mattress to grab the book with all the information about Vanya’s powers inside, and then he slips outside as quickly as he can, managing to avoid any of his siblings that might still be lingering in the Academy.

“I remember the way to hers,” states Ben, starting down the path and guiding Klaus down the street. “What are you going to say?”

“God, I don’t know,” he admits, chewing his thumbnail. “I don’t think she’ll even believe me.”

Ben grimaces a little, but nods at the book clutched in his hands. “She’s got to believe that, though.”

“What about Allison?”

“Huh?”

Klaus stares pointedly at the book. “The last page,” he murmures. “It says she rumoured her into thinking she was ordinary. I… we should tell Allison too, right?”

“Right,” says Ben, not sounding entirely confident like Klaus wished he was. He has no idea what he’s doing right now, or if this is the right way to go about this situation. “And the others, too.”

“Yeah, yeah. Right?”

“Right.”

Klaus toys with his lip. “Right,” he repeats. “Maybe we should tell them first.”

Ben pauses, looking thoughtful. “It did say she was dangerous…” He murmurs, frowning. 

“She’s on her pills still, though,” he adds. “She shouldn’t be able to use them.”

“I don’t know how sane everyone would think you are telling them about this after that breakdown,” Ben admits, and Klaus rolls his eyes. “Plus, I can’t imagine Luther being all too... you know.”

A snort falls from his lips. “Clever? Empathetic? Approachable?”

“All of the above,” sighs Ben. “Okay. So, we tell Vanya first, then Allison?”

“Allison’ll be on Luther’s side, though.”

“I think she’ll be on Vanya’s this time.”

“No, no, not about that - about the whole other situation.”

“Ah. I mean, probably, but…” Ben shrugs. “Thought you weren’t going to tell them about that.”

“I wasn’t, but god knows what Pogo’s going to do.”

“No idea what he’s thinking, honestly. I’m honestly just surprised he did that with the tape.”

“Surprise of the year. Who knew he actually- fuck, sorry!”

He stumbles as someone narrowly avoids walking into him, jumping back a little and whirling around to face the person, only to startle even more. “Anyone getting deja vu here?”

Leonard raises an eyebrow at him and chuckles softly, one hand raised where he had gone to try and steady Klaus. “We need to stop running into one another like this,” he comments. Klaus huffs, exhales slowly.

“Coincidence,” he mutters, and ignores the way Ben walks a few steps ahead before turning and giving a pointed look to him.

“How’ve you been?” Leonard asks, reaching out to rest a hand on his shoulder while his eyes flick up and down him. “You look… tired.”

Klaus snorts. “That’s an understatement,” he mutters, but he lets his shoulders fall a little. “I’m just - I’m fine. Busy.”

“I can imagine.” Leonard squeezes his shoulder and offers a thin smile. “You look worn thin. I was just heading back home, how about you come over for a drink? Something to eat?”

“Klaus, you can’t seriously be thinking of going,” Ben says, drifting back over. “Come on, we need to go see Vanya. Like, now, Klaus.”

“I, uh, I don’t know…” Klaus says, glancing down at the book in his hands. “I needed to do something, so…”

“You’ve got all day,” Leonard comments, eyebrows raised. “Looks like you could do with a break anyway.”

“ _ Klaus _ ,” says Ben, looking a little disbelieving, but Klaus isn’t even sure what he’s doing anyway - what he’s going to say to Vanya, how she’ll react. Rushing in has hardly put him in a good situation, perhaps he does just need an hour or so to calm down and talk to someone. A part of himself knows that Leonard is probably the worst person to turn to at this moment, but running on little sleep and pure stress and hysteria has him a little more desperate for any kind of reassurance or guidance, and so he takes it.

“Alright,” he sighs, nodding. “Yeah, yeah, okay. Just for a while.”

“Great.” Leonard grins at him, squeezes his arm again before guiding him down the street in the direction of his house. 

“Klaus, seriously, we need to tell Vanya now - she deserves to know,” Ben says, and continues to say so all the way to Leonard’s house, but Klaus has years worth of practice at ignoring Ben and does so effortlessly now. He all but collapses into a chair when they finally get inside, running his hands through his hair whilst Leonard disappears into the kitchen, muttering something about tea. 

“I just need a moment to think, Ben,” Klaus snaps beneath his breath, throwing a glance towards the kitchen before looking back at his brother. It is obvious Ben doesn’t very much appreciate this delay, but he’s not sure he could deny that sitting down and composing himself before hand might actually be a good idea, at least considering the way his hands shake when he reaches to take the cup of tea offered from Leonard, so much so he nearly spills it all over the place. 

“Trouble at home?” Leonard asks, sinking into a groaning chair nearby. Klaus can’t help the brittle laugh that tumbles from his lips.

“You could say that,” he says into his tea, staring at a particular spot on the floor. “They, uh. There’s video footage of me.”

“Oh,” says Leonard after a moment. Klaus resists the urge to laugh again, and just smiles bitterly instead, nodding. 

“Oh,” he echoes. “But, uh. Someone, I guess, altered it. Everyone knows someone went into Dad’s room, but it cut out while I was in there. There’s probably a full tape of it somewhere, and I kind of went and pissed off the guy who has it.”

Ben makes a slight sound beside him, but he has nothing to say either - there really is nothing to say. He might not have pissed Pogo off, but he wouldn’t be surprised if another tape was suddenly found lying around. 

Leonard is quiet for several moments, staring at Klaus in thought. “Well, in that case, you might want to think about leaving them,” he states. “Get away before they can get you. Or,” he pauses, gaze suddenly intense and burning. “Get rid of the guy with the tape.”

Klaus blinks at him, the words taking a moment to fully sink in, and he recoils when they do. “I - what? No. No, I’m not just going to - to kill Pogo! No, no, god no-”

There is an audible  _ clink  _ as Leonard sets his own tea down, hard enough that some liquid spills over the edge, seeping into the wooden coffee table. He rises to his feet, closes the space between them to lean over him.

“Klaus,” he says, voice somewhere between irritated and pitiful. “I think it’s time you take this seriously. What do you think everyone is going to do when they watch a video of you smothering your own father in his bed?”

Klaus swallows, sinking back a little into the chair as he looks up at Leonard. “I - uh. Two - two of them already know, I-”

The way Leonard’s face twists makes him pause. His tongue dashes across his lips and he swallows again, glancing around but the chair he is on is set in a corner and there are only walls either side of him, and Leonard in front of him, and he is still holding that tea and Reginald’s book is on his lap. 

“And you think they’re not already digging that tape up, then? Not already talking about how to deal with you? Between Allison’s rumours and Luther’s strength, you wouldn’t have a chance against them. You set yourself up.”

“Leonard, I - what?” He squirms, wanting to get off this chair, out of this corner, and suddenly very aware of the ghost with a bashed in skull hovering in the corner of the room. Five - hell, Five was on his side, and Diego wasn’t - bad, about it. Neither of them would hurt him, or be on board with hurting him. He’s sure of that. At least, partially sure. “Leonard,” he repeats, making a half-hearted attempt to get up only to sink back down when Leonard doesn’t move out of his way for him like he expected. “Come on, I-”

“You murdered Reginald Hargreeves in front of a camera,” Leonard states, blunt and sharp enough to make Klaus flinch. “You’re going to have to do something soon, Klaus.”

“He’s talking shit,” says Ben, waving his hand to get KLaus’ attention. “Come on, just leave, he’s talking shit, don’t listen to him-”

“Can’t imagine what they’d do to you would be that pleasant,” he adds. “And you’ve just set yourself up for it. I’m sure they’re just waiting for you to come back-”

“Leonard, stop,” Klaus pleads, and he feels like he can’t breathe again, a fresh wave of panic seizing him. The tea in his hands is hot when it spills all over his fingers, and the book digs into his stomach uncomfortably. 

“What did you think was going to happen?” Leonard asks him, and his mocking tone makes Klaus’ cheeks heat up in embarrassment; his head shakes side to side, but he can’t quite find any words to respond with. He has been gliding by, hoping things will just work themselves out or just die down eventually, but of course that was stupid and foolish of him to think. Especially after the tape from today, Luther will not give up until he finds out the truth, and now Pogo will likely voluntarily hand it to him, and in the end he won’t be able to do anything against Luther, and if there was going to be a situation to make Allison rumour someone again, Klaus murdering Reginald would surely do that; in which case all of them would be helpless, even if Five and Diego stood up for him. 

So, Klaus needs to make sure that the proper tape doesn’t get out, and if he can’t find that tape, then… he’d have to take it to Pogo. He’d have to run after that, surely. He wouldn’t be able to stay anywhere near his siblings if he went through with something like that. But he can’t - he can’t hurt, or kill, Pogo. He can’t do that, but what else is he supposed to do? 

His tea clatters to the floor, freeing his hands in favour of running them through his hair, and Leonard keeps talking, and talking, and talking, and Klaus can’t breathe. His mind runs wild with what his siblings might do to him, and how he would end up all over the news as a murderer, and with ideas of what he needs to do, and-

Leonard catches his wrists when he tries to shove him away, and the touch is suddenly exactly like the way the ghosts had latched onto him, and somewhere over Leonard’s shoulders a light explodes, and Klaus cries. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has been resurrected, surprise. Any thoughts or comments would be greatly appreciated <3


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